| Posted: December 15, 2006 |
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Nanotechnology bandage speeds up healing
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(Nanowerk News) The first clinical trials of a medical bandage that heals wounds faster concludes this month, bringing two University of Akron researchers closer to commercializing a product years in the making.
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Professors Daniel Smith and Darrell Reneker used electricity to spin ultrafine polymer fibers while infusing them with chemicals that open a wound to oxygen.
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The nanofiber bandage is particularly helpful for diabetics because the dressing releases nitric oxide gas, a natural chemical diabetics don't produce enough of, but one that is crucial for body repair.
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As a bonus, the electrospun fibers are inexpensive, lightweight and elastic, and conform to any wound without sticking, he said.
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The first human trials are winding up in Colombia. The South American country was chosen because it was easier to find people suffering parasitic lesions, a challenging wound that will highlight the bandage's strengths.
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Smith and Reneker hope the results of those trials will win them FDA approval for clinical trials in the United States.
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The university has found a Minnesota firm to make the bandages, but is encouraging the company to build the plant here.
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The company, which Smith didn't want to identify yet, has a reputation for awarding plants to the areas where the technology is developed. He predicted the bandages will be ready for production by 2008 "at the latest."
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"The company that makes these dressings will be making tens of millions of them, and that will require a lot of blue-collar workers," Smith said. "And there's a good chance that work will be here."
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The university is working on other "not-so-sexy" nanofiber products, Smith said, and it's possible one factory could produce all of them.
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The UA effort won a 2006 Innovation Award from NorTech, an economic development organization dedicated to spurring invention in Northeast Ohio.
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