Cicadas - Antimicrobial Surface

At many locations worldwide, cicadas produce their high-pitched buzzing sound and remind us that summer is winding down. It is now known that this small insect has other talents on the nanoscale level. Cicada wings kill bacteria on contact and also clear away the resulting cell debris. This ability is of major medical interest in dealing with bacterial infections.

The cicada bacterial resistance process has several unknowns and research continues in multiple laboratories. Their wing structure is covered with many perpendicular tube or pillar-like structures, each a thousand times thinner than a human hair, or about 10-7meter in diameter. One theory of operation is that bacteria attach themselves to the tubes through electrical attraction, and then move along the tube surface while slowly disintegrating. The mechanism of how the cicada wing then rids itself of the cell contamination remains a mystery.

Efforts are underway to synthetically duplicate the cicada wing structure. Success could replace the strong, harsh chemicals now used to fight infectious bacteria, materials which lead eventually to the survival of dangerous, resistant “super-bacteria.” Cicadas show us the way to effective, biodegradabe bacteria control, a valuable example of biomimicry.