Antimicrobial Dressings

Antimicrobial Dressings: The Wound Care Applications explores the literature surrounding the catalytic behavior of proteolytic enzymes immobilized together with nanoparticles. As numerous applications using proteolytic enzymes for debridement, silver as antibiotic and nanoparticles for enzyme immobilization were developed in the last years, this book explores interdisciplinary information combining nanotechnology, biotechnology and medicine and how it's still in early stages. The book adopts a holistic approach in a lifecycle context to evaluate their final feasibility, including industrial exploitability without disregard of the potential risks of enzymes and nanomaterials to human health and the environment.

• Describes the drawback of using unstable enzymes in wound debridement such as infections, irritations, low availability, rapid elimination from the body, and impossibility of creating a high local concentration of the preparation without increasing its systemic concentration
• Provides information on higher efficient antimicrobial property and enzyme stability using nanoparticles as carriers for enzyme immobilization due to minimum diffusional limitation, maximum surface area per unit mass, and high enzyme loading
• Discusses the physical characteristics of the nanoparticles through multilayer polyelectrolytes encasing, such as diffusion and particle mobility that will influence the catalytic activity, pH and thermal stability of attached enzymes