Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Harvard Medical School and MIT have invented a smart bandage that could someday heal chronic wounds or battlefield injuries faster.
This bandage is made up of special fibers with electric conductivity. The fibers are coated with a special gel than can be filled with antibiotics or other useful drug. It is also equipped with a postage stamp-sized microcontroller. The microcontroller could be triggered by a phone or other wireless device, to send small amounts of voltage through a selected fiber. The electric current heats the fiber and the hydrogel and releases whatever drug it contains.
This bandage is the first one that is capable of dose-dependent drug release. It is very promising for fastyer and more efficient healing of chronic and combat wounds.
The research was reported in:
P. Mostafalu, et al., A Textile Dressing for Temporal and Dosage Controlled Drug Delivery, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2017, 1702399. DOI 10.1002/adfm.201702399