https://phys.org/news/2018-10-chance-bacteria-implants.html

Significantly increasing the antibiotic's efficacy

As part of the "Synergy-Boost" project, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials IFAM, for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME, for Cell Therapy and Immunology IZI, and for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM have together developed a technique for preventing further infection. "We apply the antibiotic needed directly to the second implant – bringing it right to the spot where it's needed," says Kai Borcherding, a scientist at Fraunhofer IFAM. "We also did research on how antibiotics and silver ions work synergistically, significantly increasing the efficacy of the drug." While both the antibiotic and the silver ions can eliminate pathogens, their combined effect is much stronger than the sum of their individual effects – they reinforce each other.