Project description
Taking smart wound dressings to the market
Advanced wound dressings that do not act merely as barriers but promote wound healing are emerging in the market. The EU-funded SNFWD project is working on smart wound dressings based on nanofibres that mimic the natural extracellular matrix of human tissues and can deliver drugs at the same time, further enhancing wound healing. Researchers will incorporate a calcium phosphate coating on the surface of nanofibres to accommodate electrostatic interactions with drugs, and a synthetic acidification strategy for controlled drug release. This approach can be industrially adapted, overcoming current challenges associated with the fabrication of smart wound dressings.
Objective
To address the dynamic nature of wound healing, the wound care market is transitioning from classic protective barriers into advanced, active wound dressings, interacting with the wound by stimulating and managing cell migration and the sequence of healing events. In this regard, development of smart drug delivery wound dressings based on nanofibers, is a novel topic and of high importance due to the porosity, biomimicry and high surface area of such materials bringing about very optimum oxygen and water permeability, enhanced cell activity thus healing rate and better dissolution rate and ease of incorporation of drugs, respectively. However, to industrially realize such systems, there are still some challenges. Of the most important challenges is fabrication approach of such systems, that must not lead to either a burst release or damage to the drug during the process. As a novel idea, I aim to biomineralize a doped calcium phosphate drug carrier coating on the surface of nanofibers that could be efficiently loaded by drug molecules through electrostatic interactions. To accelerate the healing rate of chronic wounds, the wound medium is conventionally acidified by topical application of acids. This synthetic acidification along with natural trend of acidification of the wound as far as healing continues, can lead to dissolution of the drug carrier coating, thus release of drug molecules in a controlled manner. In this nanofibrous wound dressing, not only the nanofibrous structure biomimicking natural extracellular matrix of human tissues and smart drug delivery facilitates interaction with live cells and manages the healing process, respectively, but also cheap and fast electrospinning process for production of nanofibers promise an industrially adaptable approach. Thus, this proposed research would be an important novel step towards introduction of nanofibrous drug delivery wound dressings to industry.
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Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinator
91054 Erlangen
Germany