Title : New optical and nanotechnologies for the treatment of infectious diseases

Abstract:

Human infectious diseases are among the most important problems in our healthcare system and today antibiotics are used for the treatment of a variety of diseases and infections. There is, however, increasing awareness and concern about antibiotic resistance, which prevents effective treatment of a large number of infectious diseases, and therefore there is a need for alternative treatments. Especially, for bacteria in the biofilm state that show a high prevalence of resistance to current treatment methods. In the talk, we report new kinds of antimicrobial methods based on specific wavelength UV light and nanotechnology that lead to both the effective killing of bacterial biofilms and the prevention of bacterial biofilm formation. We discuss how UVA, UVB, and UVC can be used to kill a large number of bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Escherichia coli, and Enterococcus faecalis. It will also be discussed how a combination of light and antibiotics can be used to kill bacteria. This synergy between light and antibiotics, called light assisted antibiotics, has been developed by our research group and we show that it can be used to reduce the usage of antibiotics and increase the disinfection effect of antibiotics. In the talk, we also discuss a novel method to fabricate nanostructures directly on a Titanium implant surface. This technology can reduce bacterial biofilm formation on the implant surfaces and the technology could in the future be important since biofilm formation in human implants leads to a wide range of chronic human infections. Our preliminary work focus on human dental implants where 45% of patients who have dental implants have developed infections within 10 years after implantation.
Audience Take Away:

• The audience will learn about bacteria in the biofilm state that show a high prevalence of resistance to current treatment methods
• New antimicrobial methods based on specific wavelength UV light and nanotechnology
• How to reduce the usage of antibiotics and increase the disinfection effect of antibiotics
• How to reduce infections from human implants and especially human dental implants

Biography:

Paul Michael Petersen is Full Professor in New Light Sources at the Technical University of Denmark and he is chairman of DOLL – a Photonics Green lab that tests and develops new lighting technology based on LED and diode laser technologies. He has more than 30 years of research experience in laser physics, LED technologies, and optical measuring techniques. He has headed several collaborative research projects within photonics. From 2001 until 2007 he was head of Laser Systems and Optical Materials at Risø National Laboratory. From 2002 to 2011 he was adjunct professor in Optics at the Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen University.