Last week brought one of the more exciting results of that collaboration: an anti-microbial hydrogel that eradicates drug-resistant bacteria.

FORBES: The Semi-Conductor Tech that Could Eliminate Superbugs

Otto Wichterle, when a professor of chemistry in Prague in the 1950s, had discovered a polymer called hydrogel poly-hydroxyethyl methacrylate, with its affinity for water.

ECONOMIST: Otto Wichterle

IBM, in partnership with the Singapore Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, has developed a hydrogel that can be smeared all over such implants, greatly reducing the risk of infection.

ENGADGET: Alt-week 1.26.13: quadruple DNA helixes, Byzantine mutants and battling hospital bugs

Safe enough to go into the human body, the hydrogel prevents biofilms from growing and, thanks to its positive charge, attracts negatively charged microorganisms, which it then pops like water balloons.

ENGADGET: Alt-week 1.26.13: quadruple DNA helixes, Byzantine mutants and battling hospital bugs