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Peri-implant infection is rapidly becoming anif not the mostimportant clinical challenge for indwelling medical devices. To alleviate the global rise in antibiotic use for the treatment of such infections, a plethora of biomaterials/bioengineering-based antimicrobial strategies are emerging to restrict or ideally to eliminate microbial adhesion and biofilm formation on implant surfaces. Yet, the development of such approaches faces specific challenges, like biocompatibility concerns, reduced antimicrobial effectiveness, long-term stability issues and antibiotic resistance development, which limit translation to the clinic. This review provides insights into the antimicrobial activity of current state-of-the-art biomaterial-based approaches to address the aforementioned issues. Translational research strategies and regulatory framework are also emphasised as key elements facilitating clinical implementation of anti-infective biomaterials. This review closes with the vision that the integration of computational tools and experimental databases using artificial intelligence (AI) would provide new insights for the accelerated development of next-generation biomaterial-based antimicrobial strategies.

The main target for the future of materials in dentistry aims to develop dental implants that will have optimal integration with the surrounding tissues, while preventing or avoiding bacterial infections. In this project, poly(ether ether ketone) (PEEK), known for its suitable biocompa-tibility and mechanical properties for dental applications, was loaded with 1, 3, and 5 wt.% ZnO nanoparticles to provide antibacterial properties and improve interaction with cells. Sample cha-racterization by X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) as well as mechanical properties showed the presence of the nanoparticles and their effect in PEEK matrices, preserving their relevant properties for dental applications. Al-though, the incorporation of ZnO nanoparticles did not improve the mechanical properties and a slight decrease in the thermal stability of the materials was observed. Hemocompatibility and osteoblasts-like cell viability tests showed improved biological performances when ZnO was present, demonstrating high potential for dental implant applications.

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) thin films constitute proven protective coatings due to their outstanding mechanical and tribological properties, combined with a relative chemical inertness and long-term stability. These make them particularly attractive to protect metallic medical implants from corrosion and erosion. However, lack of adhesion between DLC and metallic surfaces is a recurrent problem due to poor interactions with the native oxide layer. An effective strategy to overcome these adhesion issues consists in building interfacial layers. In this context, in this work, the use of a plasma treatment to generate shallow metallic carbide layers was investigated, to promote DLC adhesion directly on the surface of 316L stainless steel (SS).The metallic carbides presence stabilizes and promotes DLC thin film deposition. The highest adhesion was obtained on samples carburized by methane during 20 min with a bias of À700 V. Furthermore, this led to interface amorphization. In conclusion, this study shows that plasma can provide new insights for overcoming the lack of adhesion of DLC thin films on SS metallic surfaces.coating adhesion, depth profile analysis, diamond-like carbon, interface, plasma carburizing | INTRODUCTIONCarbon-based thin films have emerged as potent coatings for a number of applications thanks to the richness and versatility they offer in terms of chemistry and nanostructures. 1,2 In particular, the specific nanostructure of diamond-like carbon (DLC), a metastable form of amorphous carbon characterized by a significant amount of sp 3 bonds, directly confers valuable properties of diamond to the

Environmental surfaces have been widely recognized as an important source of hospital-associated transmissions. A number of silver-based antibacterial coatings have been reported in the literature. However, the success of any antibacterial strategy depends on the ability to control the kinetics of the silver ions released from the coating. The novel strategy proposed in this work is based on plasma surface engineering for a controlled-release of silver ions. Plasma-based nanocoatings, plasma oxidation processes and surface patterning of silver coatings were designed and optimized. Surface analyses such as XPS and AFM, as well as silver ion release over 168 h, was evaluated by MIP-AES. Results showed that surface plasma engineering successfully allow tuning the silver release and bioactivity in Ag-containing antibacterial coatings.