In yet another example of engineering and medicine colliding, a team of research engineers has created an injectable gel that speeds up the healing of wounds. The material produces a scaffold that helps new tissue grow.
The scaffold, the researchers say, is what makes their technology unique. Currently, doctors use ointments and hydrogel dressings that are applied topically to treat wounds and keep skin moist. The key issue, researchers say, is that these materials don’t offer a scaffold that’s effective enough to facilitate tissue growth.
“Achieving a biomaterial that promotes rapid regeneration while maintaining structural support has been a holy grail in the field of tissue engineering,” said UCLA bioengineer Dino Di Carlo. “Our team has achieved this in an injectable form by combining tailored material chemistry and microfluidic fabrication of uniform spherical building blocks, each about the width of a human hair.”
Tatiana Segura, a chemical and biomolecular engineering professor, added: “Our technology is beautifully simple, as it utilizes any available chemistry to generate tiny gels that can be assembled into a large unit, leaving behind a path for cellular infiltration.”
The gel uses a cluster of microscopic synthetic polymer spheres (picture gumballs stuck together in a jar). This cluster produces MAP (microporous annealed particles) gel, which fills the wound and facilitates the growth of new tissue. Eventually the body degrades the spheres, leaving just the newly grown tissue.
“The beauty of the MAP gel is that there are no other added growth factors that other technologies require to attract cells into the material,” said Westbrook Weaver, a UCLA postdoctoral scholar. “The geometry of the MAP gel networks entices cells to migrate into the gel without the need for anything other than a cell adhesive peptide, so that the cells can grab onto the gels.”
The team conducted in vivo tests, where it concluded the map gel was more effective during a five-day period than traditional healing methods. “We envision this material being useful for a wide range of wound applications, from acute damage, like lacerations and surgical wound closures, to more chronic applications like diabetic ulcers and large-area burn wounds,” shared researcher Donald Griffin.
The group recently published its findings online in the journal Nature Materials. For more information, visit UCLA’s website.