Antimicrobial resistance is creating growing challenges for both healthcare and food production, increasing the need for affordable new materials that can fight dangerous pathogens.

A multidisciplinary team led by Flinders University, working with researchers from the UK, has developed a new material designed for safe and effective antimicrobial and antifungal use.

The World Health Organization has identified antimicrobial resistance as one of the century’s most serious global health threats. The problem involves dangerous pathogens, including Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella pneumoniae, non-typhoidal Salmonella, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.

Novel Sulfur-Based Polymer Shows Promise
“Importantly, the antimicrobial does not harm human or plant cells, so it has potential in medicine and agriculture,” says Professor Justin Chalker, whose research group recently created an innovative photochemical reaction used in the new study published in Chemical Science.

“The new antimicrobial is a sulfur-rich polymer material which overcome previous limitations in sulfur-based preparations and shows impressive potency against a variety of fungal and bacterial pathogens.”

Sulfur and sulfur-based compounds have been used as antimicrobials for many years, but they are often malodorous (strong smelling) and difficult to formulate because of their limited solubility.