By Allan Maurer
GAINSVILLE, FL—We think of sharks as swift-moving, but actually, most of the time they move so slowly it is difficult to see any motion, yet they do not collect fouling organisms the way whales and the hulls of ships do. Now, the Gainsville-based startup Sharklet has developed an anti-microbial surface patterned on sharkskin that may help prevent often deadly hospital-derived infections.
Founded in November 2007, four-employee Sharklet is backed by private investors, but likely on the hunt for a venture round, although the company declines to discuss fund-raising due to concerns over violating SEC solicitation rules.
The company is headquarted in the Sid Martin Biotechnology incubator outside Gainsville.
Sharklet VP Mark Spiecker tells TechJournal South that the company’s first product is a hygienic surface that can be placed on any other surface like contact paper. Placed on hospital bedside tables, doors, and work areas, it could help keep them microbe free.
He notes that the surface, patterned like shark skin, does not kill microbes like so many other products, but instead disrupts their ability to reproduce and form dangerous bacterial films that typically form within hours. It’s able to prevent the growth of bacterial films up to 21 days.
Hospital infections are an alarming and growing problem. “They’re the fourth leading cause of death in the United States,” says Spiecker. “Being in the hospital is the second most dangerous place to be” according to one study, he says. (The most dangerous place to be is behind the wheel of a car).
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that patients contract 250,000 infections from catheters alone (about 40 percent of all hospital-acquired infections) annually. On average, a hospital-acquired infection may cost a healthcare facility an additional $25,000 each to treat.
The micro-topography of the sharkskin-like surface, billions of raised microscopic diamond shaped patterns, interrupts certain signaling functions of microbes, keeping them from proliferating.
The fact that is a non-kill solution has several up sides, he notes. The use of antibiotics and heavy metals such as silver have not made much of a dent in hospital infection rates. The heavy use of antibiotics may be just creating more resistant germs.
The Sharklet product evolved from a project the U.S. Naval Research approached University of Florida professor of material science Dr. Anthony Brennan in the late 1990s to help develop an environmentally friendly way to keep ships from becoming fouled with marine organisms.
“They didn’t want a chemical or heavy metal solution,” says Spiecker.
Brennan surveyed various ocean critters and determined that only sharks violated the general principal that anything moving slowly in the water would get fouled the way whales collect barnacles.
Brennan took an impression of shark skin, created his own adaption, and after many tests, discovered it inhibited marine fouling by 97 percent. He realized he had something and moved to patent the discovery.
Further tests demonstrated that human pathogens such as e-coli and staph were also unable to grow on the pattern.
Spiecker says the company plans to test its first product, the overlay surface, in hospital-type environments within the next 9 to 12 months. It has other products based on the pattern in development.
“Resistance is beginning to manifest in ‘superbugs’ that are originating in the places where we are most dili¬gently trying to kill the organisms – namely, hospitals,” Brennan told a university publication. “I think engineered topographies are an answer to some of these problems.”
The company is seeking a manufacturing partner to bring the technology to market.
On the Web: www.sharklet.com
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