Both nanocrystalline silver and bacterial cellulose have been used as biomedical materials. Silver has been used as an antimicrobial agent, and bacterial cellulose as a wound dressing. The combination of both these technologies has the potential to create a synergistic scenario. A novel method for the attachment of nanocrystalline silver to bacterial cellulose has been developed. The cellulose is oxidized with sodium metaperiodate to dialdehyde cellulose and functionalized with silver using thiosemicarbazide, silver protienate and ammoniacal silver. The samples were prepared using both a commercially available bacteria cellulose wound dressing, Biofill, and lab made, wet pellicle, as the substrate. The antimicrobial efficacy against E. coli and S. aureus has been determined using a modified disk diffusion test procedure, and the release profiles of silver into deionized water were determined. These tests have shown an antimicrobial efficacy ranging between 1 day for the Biofill prepared samples and 5 days for the pellicle based samples
