Аннотация:The articles of this special issue of ‘Silver-based antimicrobials’ focus onAgNPs or nanomaterials, which reflects field-wide research trends. Different AgNP synthesis methods or formulations that are in combination with other antimicrobials are of interest. The various methods, either biological or chemical-physical, produce different types of AgNPs. The articles here and the review of patents from Sim et al., reflects an explosion of such exploratory activity towards potential industrial and health care applications. It is becoming clear that the different formulations of AgNPs that lead to differences in their size, shape, structure and their release of Ag atoms lead to very different antimicrobial activities. This body of work suggests the possibility of tuning silver’s antimicrobial activity towards specific strains. Research to date suggests AgNPs to be very effective antimicrobial silver bullets.