Chronic wounds – wounds that haven’t started to heal after several weeks of treatment – affect over 6.5 million people in the U.S., are a threat to patients’ health and quality of life, and have enormous economic costs of more than $25 billion annually. Low-cost, effective, safe, and painless approaches that can accelerate wound healing are desperately needed, and with a new four-year, $1.89 million grant from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, researchers in the Department of Surgery and the Department of Materials Science & Engineering will be testing a cutting-edge technology that may fill this gap.
“Electrostimulation, or ES, is a type of treatment that uses low-level electrical currents to promote tissue regeneration and speed up the wound healing process,” said Angela Gibson, MD, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Division of Acute Care and Regional General Surgery, the Medical Director of UW Health’s Wound Healing Services, and one of the lead investigators on the new grant. However, currently available ES technology has some significant limitations. “While research has shown that ES enhances wound healing, the problem is that current ES devices usually require batteries or an external power source and they are bulky for patients to wear, making them impractical for routine use,” explained Xudong Wang, PhD, a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a co-lead investigator on the grant.
With prior support from a UW2020 award, Gibson and Wang conducted a pilot study that demonstrated the feasibility of using nanogenerator technology developed by Wang and his colleagues to promote wound healing in a rat model. Nanogenerators are tiny devices that can convert the energy that is generated by motion into electricity. For the new NIH-funded award, Wang and Gibson will be partnering with a third co-lead investigator, Kristyn Masters, PhD, who is Professor, Chair, and Director of the Center for Bioengineering at the University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Center, to optimize a nanogenerator-driven electrostimulator that is designed as a disposable over-the-counter bandage, like a Band-Aid®. The electricity that is generated by this wearable technology can then be used to send electrical impulses to wounded tissue underneath the bandage to promote blood flow and healing.
“Before we can begin testing wearable and disposable ES bandages in clinical trials, we need to better understand how ES achieves accelerated wound healing at a cellular level and identify the optimal signal and device design for a nanogenerator ES device that will deliver the desired therapeutic effect,” said Gibson. “This study will provide us with the engineering and pre-clinical data that is needed to translate this innovative technology into studies with patient populations, taking us one step closer to a low-cost, sustainable, and disposable wound treatment technology that can be used worldwide, including in austere and resource-limited locations.”