Wound Management

About

Brief Description: UCLA researchers in the Departments of Chemistry, Physics, and Bioengineering, led by Dr. Tim Deming of the Bioengineering department, have developed a platform to create and modify nanoscale vesicles and hydrogels for use in wound management. The poly-peptide based platforms created by the Deming group are customizable in nearly all physical characteristics, can be tailored in size, be loaded with hydrophobic, hydrophilic, or cellular payloads, adaptable to specific delivery locations, low toxicity, are fully synthetic, possess highly reproducible properties, and are inexpensive to prepare compared to solid-phase peptide synthesis. The platform can be used to create novel, need-based nanoscale vesicles or injectable hydrogels, and can be used to augment existing material systems. Advantages: Hydrogel version is thermoresponsive – an injectable liquid at room temp, solid at body temp Hydrogel possesses nano and microscale network to allow cell attachment and proliferation Able to load vesicles and hydrogels with hydrophilic and/or hydrophobic payloads Potential low toxicity and biodegradability due to synthetic polymerized peptide building block Vesicles can penetrate cell membranes to intracellularly deliver payloads  Stable at high temperature (up to 80°C in water) and can be engineered to various sizes (50 to 1000nm) Inexpensive starting material and process chemistry used to synthesize peptidic polymers Innovation: With the increasing elderly population, the wound management market has been greatly affected, primarily due to the increase incidents of skin ulcers and surgical procedures. The wound management market has begun investing heavily in advanced dressing technologies as a means to address the rise in healthcare costs.These advanced dressing technologies include materials to deliver cells to the wound site; materials to deliver proteins, such as collagen, to the wound; and materials to act as artificial skin or as skin replacement. Many of these advanced materials are based on nanoscale gels and vesicles as a means to adhere to the wound at the cellular level. These nanoscale systems offer the promise of minimizing toxicity, maximizing bioavailability, and potentially reducing scarring. - See more at: https://techtransfer.universityofcalifornia.edu/NCD/25501.html#sthash.J3HWehU3.dpuf