Isabel Ferreri

Researcher

PhD in Science: Physics, University of Minho

BSc Chemical and Physics

BSc Textile Chemistry

Email: isabelferreri@gmail.com

Author name: I. Ferreri

Current Work

With the increase of life expectancy, knee and hip joint prosthesis are being widely used worldwide, with concerns about the quality of life of patients and costs involved in the treatment of patients requiring placement of orthopedic prostheses. Staphylococcus epidermidis have emerged as one of the major nosocomial pathogens associated with microbial infections, one of the major causes of the failure of medical devices. 
In order to minimize this drawback, the introduction of multifunctional coatings in the biomaterial could be a step to improve their physical, mechanical, tribological and biological properties and consequently avoid the revision surgeries by prostheses failure.
The main goal of this work is to produce multifunctional Ag-ZrCN for antimicrobial coatings for hip prostheses, achieved multifunctional properties, but without compromise the mechanical performance of the base system. Indeed, silver antimicrobial activity of these coatings was enhanced by an activation procedure. 

Publications (click here for more information)

1. I. Ferreri, V. Lopes, S. Calderon V., C. J. Tavares, A. Cavaleiro, S. Carvalho, “Study of the effect of the silver content on the structural and mechanical behavior of Ag–ZrCN coatings for orthopedic prostheses”, Materials Science & Engineering C: Materials for Biological Applications, 42 (2014) 782-790.
   
   
2. Henriques, M.; Susano, M.; Carvalho, Isabel; Ferreri, I.; Carvalho, S.; Oliveira, R. Biological properties of Ti-Si-C-O-N thin films, Journal of Nano Research, 6, 99-114, 2009.