Hydrogel Adhesive Helps in Wound Healing

Cuts, scrapes, blisters, burns, splinters, and punctures — there are a number of ways our skin can be broken. Most treatments for skin wounds involve simply placing a barrier over them (usually an adhesive gauze bandage) to keep it moist, limit pain, and reduce exposure to infectious microbes, but do not actively assist in the healing process. A new, scalable approach to speeding up wound healing has been developed based on heat-responsive hydrogels that are mechanically active, stretchy, tough, highly adhesive, and antimicrobial: active adhesive dressings (AADs). Created by researchers at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Harvard's John A. Paulson School for Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and McGill University, AADs can close wounds significantly faster than other methods and prevent bacterial growth without the need for any additional apparatus or stimuli. The research is reported in Science Advances.