FUNCTIONAL MATERIALS TACKLE BACTERIA

RESEARCH IN FOCUS

When treating open wounds, the risk of bacterial infection is never far away. For diabetic patients with chronic wounds, that risk is even acute and infections can lead to amputations or worse. Prof. Arn Mignon of the Functional Materials Research Group (SIEM) at Group T Campus developed a new type of dressing to nip this problem in the bud. Who is this scientist who does great work with the smallest things?

Is it his young age, his hunger for knowledge or his quest for the tiniest of particles? Fact is that Prof. Arn Mignon does not fit directly into any of the classic, school-based boxes. Chemistry and biochemistry, materials technology and life sciences blend seamlessly with him. The smaller the material the better, as long as it can be used to heal wounds or repair torn tendons in hands and fingers, among other things. Arn’s research belongs to the cluster ‘Healthcare Engineering’, which together with ‘Sustainable Engineering’ is the domain where pre-eminently disciplines cross and inspire each other so that spontaneous innovation blossoms.

Prof. Arn Mignon

© Julie Feyaerts

Organic

Prof. Mignon studied Chemical Engineering at UGhent. In 2016, he received his PhD in Engineering Sciences there for a thesis describing an intelligent, super absorbent polymer capable of repairing cracks in concrete. “It represented the switch from inorganic to more organic material,” he explains. “Indeed, the process of self-healing in concrete can be triggered by a combination of polymers and bacteria. Polymers are long molecules with repeating units that can develop numerous interesting properties.”

As a postdoc at UGhent, Arn is concentrating on microfibres that can be used to heal wounds in humans using a special technique -electrospinning. The next step is to develop a smart polymer-based wound dressing that not only neutralises the bacteria in the wound but also makes the progress of this process visible by a discolouration of the wound dressing. “That way, there is no need to unnecessarily administer antimicrobials that would make the patient resistant,” Arn explains.

Amical

In October 2019, Arn became a lecturer at KU Leuven Group T Campus, a job he combined with the postdoc project at UGhent for another year or so. “The informal, amical atmosphere and the international character of the Leuven campus immediately appealed to me,” Arn says. “Add to that a tour of the campus by colleague Veerle Bloemen and I was immediately sold. My first teaching assignment in early 2020 was also an instant windfall: the master course Biomedical Engineering, consisting of a series of six workshops in which students tackle a concrete biomedical problem, from prototyping to pitching.”

In the Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering research group to which both Veerle and Arn belong, Arn started to create new polymers for the creation of smart wound dressings with diagnostic and antimicrobial capabilities. “Again, polymers were enabled. The polymers in the dressing are equipped with so-called nanocontainers. These are tiny spheres that contain certain active materials. For example, there are two types. The first contains an antimicrobial compound, the second a self-extinguishing dye. When the nanocontainers come into contact with the bacteria in the infection, they release their charge. The antimicrobial compounds immediately attack the bacteria. The intensity with which the dye is released from the second kind of nanocontainers gives an indication to the doctor and the patient how the healing process is progressing.”

Bioscience Centre

The Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering research group now has more than 15 postdocs and PhDs, four of them under Arn’s direct supervision. At the same time, the number of research projects is increasing.

Arn and his colleagues’ have no shortage of plans and future prospects. “In the short term, we will house the biological and chemical aspects of our research in a common lab. That will be the forerunner of research spaces within the Bioscience Centre that will open its doors in Heverlee in five years’ time. Furthermore, we are systematically expanding our cooperation with partners: nationally such as UZ Ghent or imec, but also internationally with universities and institutes such as Laval University (Quebec, Canada) and the Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (Leipzig, Germany). There is also a huge potential for cross-fertilisation and collaboration in numerous high-tech companies. In five years’ time, our new building is guaranteed to be full of functional materials.”

Yves Persoons