The Society For Biomaterials (SFB) 2026 Annual Meeting & Exposition brought our lab to the Hyatt Regency Atlanta from March 25–28, 2026, and it was one of the most rewarding conferences for us this year. The lab had three contributions spanning our antibiofilm-coating, antimicrobial drug-delivery, and cancer-theranostic programs, and I was particularly honored to be selected as an invited speaker for an extended 30-minute slot in one of the meeting’s antimicrobial biointerfaces sessions.
A quick recap.
Invited 30-Minute Talk — Saturday, March 28
The headline contribution from the lab this year was an invited 30-minute oral presentation I delivered on Saturday morning in the CS8 Concurrent Session of “Antimicrobial and Antibiofilm Biointerfaces: Strategies to Prevent Device-Associated Infections 2”:
“Antibiotic-Free Polyethylenimine Synergized Biomimetic Antibacterial Nanoparticle Metal Implant Coatings Create Anti-Adhesive, Antibiofilm Surfaces”
Saturday, March 28, 2026 — 11:00 to 11:30 AM — Slots 3–4
I was honored to be one of those invited to the podium. Being asked for the extended format means the session organizers wanted enough time to develop the underlying mechanistic story, not just headline results — exactly the kind of audience this work needs.
The talk presented the science underneath our BactiBlank translational effort — most recently pitched at the IDEA Center’s inaugural Research Commercialization Grant event at Notre Dame. The longer SFB format gave me the time to walk through how pairing biomimicking nanoparticles with biocompatible polycationic polymers (polyethylenimine in this case) yields anti-adhesive, antibiofilm surfaces on implant-grade metals — without relying on antibiotic release. That distinction matters: antibiotic-eluting coatings contribute to the very antimicrobial-resistance problem the field is trying to solve. Our charge- and hydration-engineered approach interrupts bacterial attachment up front, before mature biofilms can form.
The Q&A and the conversations afterward were uniformly excellent, with several useful exchanges with groups working on orthopedic and trauma device surfaces. This is exactly the audience BactiBlank needs to be in front of as we move toward device-specific preclinical proof and licensing partnerships.
Poster — Phage-Architecture Antibacterials, Thursday, March 26
Earlier in the week, I presented poster PS2599 in the Drug Delivery SIG session on Thursday evening (6:00–7:30 PM):
“Phage-Architecture Antibacterial Nanoparticles Clear Multidrug-Resistant ESKAPEE Pathogens, Resensitize MDR Pathogens to Legacy Antibiotics, Prevent Emergence of New MDR, and Accelerate Wound Healing”
It’s a long title, but it’s an honest description of what this platform does. Our phage-architecture antibacterial nanoparticles — developed in collaboration with the W.M. Keck Center for Transgene Research (Castellino, Ploplis, and Donahue) — go well beyond simple bactericidal activity:
- They clear multidrug-resistant ESKAPEE pathogens (the priority pathogen list including E. faecium, S. aureus, K. pneumoniae, A. baumannii, P. aeruginosa, and Enterobacter, plus E. coli).
- They resensitize MDR pathogens to legacy antibiotics, effectively rescuing antibiotics that have lost utility.
- They suppress the emergence of new MDR, an important safety property for any antibacterial intended for repeated clinical use.
- They accelerate wound healing — providing not just antimicrobial action but a pro-regenerative effect on the wound bed.
The poster session generated some of the best one-on-one conversations of the entire meeting. There is real and growing interest in alternatives to small-molecule antibiotics, and the poster format gave us time to walk specialists through both the biology and the data.
Aurelie Brownsberger — Oral Presentation on MagSiNs
Our lab’s third contribution came from graduate researcher Aurelie Brownsberger (co-advised with Ryan Roeder), who delivered an oral presentation in the “Biomaterials and Nanotechnology for Cancer Modeling and Theranostics 2” session:
“Magneto-electric Silica Nanocarriers for Doxorubicin Delivery Inhibit Tumor Growth and Reduce Systemic Toxicity in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer”
— A. Brownsberger (Nallathamby & Roeder)
Aurelie’s talk represented effort on the MagSiN platform — magnetoelectric silica nanocarriers that load doxorubicin, accumulate preferentially in tumor tissue, and release the drug on-demand under a brief external magnetic field pulse. She delivered the talk well and fielded questions confidently. This trip was partially funded by the $400 travel grant she earned at this year’s Harper Cancer Research Day, so the SFB visit was a nice extension of that recognition.
Three Tracks, One Lab
It is worth pausing on the breadth of what the lab presented across one meeting. Cancer theranostics (Aurelie’s MagSiNs), antimicrobial drug delivery and wound healing (the phage-architecture poster), and antibiofilm device coatings (the invited talk on the BactiBlank mechanism) — that is essentially the full translational range of the PD[N]ano Lab program represented over the course of three days.
Thanks
Sincere thanks to the SFB 2026 Program Committee and to the session organizers for the invitation to give an extended-format talk, to Jessica Goodone at the Society for Biomaterials for the well-managed logistics, and — as always — to my collaborators (the Roeder Lab, the W.M. Keck Center) and to the students whose work powered every one of these presentations.
Atlanta delivered. Onward.
#SFB2026 #Biomaterials #InvitedTalk #BactiBlank #MagSiNs #PhageArchitecture #Antibiofilm #ESKAPEE #AMR #NotreDame #Berthiaume #PDNanoLab
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