Biofilm formation causes prolonged wound infections due to the dense biofilm structure, differential gene regulation to combat stress, and production of extracellular polymeric substances. Acinetobacter baumannii, Staphylococcus aureus, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa are three difficult-to-treat biofilm-forming bacteria frequently found in wound infections. This work describes a novel wound dressing in the form of an electrochemical scaffold (e-scaffold) that generates controlled, low concentrations of hypochlorous acid (HOCl) suitable for killing biofilm communities without substantially damaging host tissue. Production of HOCl near the e-scaffold surface was verified by measuring its concentration using needle-type microelectrodes. E-scaffolds producing 17, 10 and 7 mM HOCl completely eradicated S. aureus, A. baumannii, and P. aeruginosa biofilms after 3 hours, 2 hours, and 1 hour, respectively. Cytotoxicity and histopathological assessment showed no discernible harm to host tissues when e-scaffolds were applied to explant biofilms. The described strategy may provide a novel antibiotic-free strategy for treating persistent biofilm-associated infections, such as wound infections.

We previously demonstrated that shotgun metagenomic sequencing can detect bacteria in sonicate fluid, providing a diagnosis of prosthetic joint infection (PJI). A limitation of the approach that we used is that data analysis was time-consuming and specialized bioinformatics expertise was required, both of which are barriers to routine clinical use.

Hydrogen peroxide (H ₂ O ₂ ) and hypochlorous acid (HOCl) are biocides used for cleaning and debriding chronic wound infections, which often harbor drug-resistant bacteria. Here, we evaluated the in vitro activity of H ₂ O ₂ and HOCl against 27 isolates of eight bacterial species involved in wound infections.

Preconcentrating samples of dilute particles or cells to a detectable level is required in many chemical, environmental and biomedical applications. A variety of force fields have thus far been demonstrated to capture and accumulate particles and cells in microfluidic devices, which, however, all take place within the region of microchannels and may potentially cause channel clogging. This work presents a new method for the electrokinetic preconcentration of 1 μm-diameter polystyrene particles and E. coli cells in a very-low-conductivity medium inside a microfluidic reservoir. The entire microchannel can hence be saved for a post-concentration analysis. This method exploits the strong recirculating flows of induced-charge electroosmosis to concentrate particles and cells near the corners of the reservoir–microchannel interface. Positive dielectrophoresis is found to also play a role when small microchannels are used at high electric fields. Such an in-reservoir electrokinetic preconcentration method can be easily implemented in a parallel mode to increase the flow throughput, which may potentially be used to preconcentrate bacterial pathogens in water.