Smart bandages could speed up the healing process

​A smart bandage packed with conductive fibres and medicines could heal chronic wounds and battlefield injuries, according to researchers.

Scientists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Harvard Medical School and MIT have designed fibres that can be activated by a microcontroller no larger than a postage stamp. The fibres can be individually loaded with antibiotics, growth factors or painkillers, and could be triggered by a smartphone or other wireless device to release the substances.

The researchers said a single bandage could hold multiple medications tailored to a specific injury, and precisely control the dose and delivery schedule. "This is the first bandage that is capable of dose-dependent drug release," said Ali Tamayol, assistant professor of mechanical and materials engineering at Nebraska. “You can release multiple drugs with different release profiles. That's a big advantage in comparison with other systems. What we did here was come up with a strategy for building a bandage from the bottom up. This is a platform that can be applied to many different areas of biomedical engineering and medicine.”

The technology could be used to treat chronic skin wounds that stem from diabetes, or stimulate faster healing of shrapnel wounds to prevent infection in injured soldiers in remote environments. "Soldiers on the battlefield may be suffering from a number of different injuries or infections," said Tamayol. "They might be dealing with a number of different pathogens. Imagine that you have a variable patch that has antidotes or drugs targeted toward specific hazards in the environment."

The researchers, whose work was published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, tested their smart bandage against dry bandages. In experiments on mice, they found that the smart bandage regrew three times as much blood-rich critical tissue as a dry bandage.

They have patented their discovery, but it will be several years before the design comes to market because of regulatory approvals. The team are also working on incorporating sensors into their fibres that can measure indicators of health such as glucose and pH. These could be combined with embedded medicine to create a bandage that autonomously treats wounds.

Other smart bandage research has included a project at the University of Swansea which could hit clinical trials in the next 12 months. It’s designed to send data about how a wound is healing back to doctors wirelessly.