Chemical engineers patent a smart dressing that binds the edges of a surgical incision, delivers medication, and reports on healing progress.
It’s long been a staple of science fiction to mock the simple suture as outdated. And why not – the wound-closure technique has been in use for at least 5,000 years.
Prof. Hossam Haick’s chemical engineering lab at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology has created a smart suture-less dressing that binds the edges of a wound together, wards off infection, and even digitally reports on the wound’s condition to the surgeon.
The dressing would be applied to the area before a surgical incision is made. Following the surgery, the two ends of the wound bind together within three seconds.
The dressing can release antibiotics to help prevent infection, and it is connected wirelessly to the medical team’s smart devices. The smart dressing can deliver real-time reports on changes in temperature, pH and glucose levels.
Haick says he came up with the idea late one night after “watching a movie on futuristic robotics with my kids. I thought, what if we could really make self-repairing sensors?”
Haick got to work on his idea the next day. But there was a problem: The sensor was not biocompatible, meaning that it couldn’t be used in contact with skin and blood.
Picture: A self-healing, antibacterial, multifunctional wound dressing. Photo courtesy of the Technion Spokesperson’s Office