ARS | Publication request: Novel Biomaterials Methodology, Development and Application

Submitted to: Biotechnology for Fuels and Chemicals Symposium Proceedings
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: May 8, 2008
Publication Date: N/A

Technical Abstract: Traditionally the use of carbohydrate-based wound dressings including cotton, xerogels, charcoal cloth, alginates, chitosan and hydrogels, have afforded properties such as absorbency, ease of application and removal, bacterial protection, fluid balance, occlusion, and elasticity. Recent efforts in our lab have been underway to design carbohydrate dressings that are interactive cotton dressings as an approach to regulating destructive proteolysis in the non-healing wound. Elastase is a serine protease that has been associated with a variety of inflammatory diseases, and has been implicated as a destructive protease that impedes wound healing. The presence of elevated levels of elastase in non-healing wounds has been associated with the degradation of important growth factors and fibronectin necessary for wound healing. Focus will be given to the design, preparation, and assessment of a type of cotton-based interactive wound dressing designed to intervene in the pathophysiology of the chronic wound through protease sequestration. Accounting for half of all deaths, uncontrolled hemorrhage remains the leading cause of death on the battlefield. Gaining hemostatic control of lethal vascular injuries sustained in combat using topical agents remains a challenge. Recent animal testing using a lethal arterial injury model compared a variety of woven and non woven products with granular products, and found only one product (WoundStat) consistent animal survival (J Trauma. 2007;63:276-284). This product is a granular substance which seals the hemorrhaging wound in 30 seconds. The challenges in developing this type of product from woven and non woven cotton-based materials will be discussed.