Novel Material for Skin Wound Closure and Scar Prevention

SUMMARY

• Burn injuries are among the most devastating of all injuries and are the fourth most common type of trauma worldwide.  In the United States, there are 1.1 million burn injuries which require medical attention each year.  These injuries often result in significant scarring having a negative impact on the individual and the skin loses some functionality as well.  Therefore, there is an urgent need for improved therapies to treat these injuries.

• The inventors have developed a method to overcome scarring via inhibiting collagen synthesis by blocking transforming growth factor- (TGF-β).  However, the timing of TGF-β inhibition is crucial, as blocking the signal prematurely will result in poor wound healing, while blocking after peak collagen synthesis will have limited scar-reduction effect.

• The developed novel dressing allows for timed discharge of TGF-β inhibitor in vivo.  In addition, the dressing can be integrated into wound tissue using photo-triggered-imine-crosslinking reaction.  The dressing can effectively decrease fibroblast activity and collagen deposition at a time point, resulting in significance reduction in scar formation in both mouse and rabbit  models.

FIGURE

​​​The wounds in skin grafts were treated with PLGA capsules with or without TGFβ inhibitor in HA-NB hydrogel, or alginate hydrogel as control (Ctrl) at different time points

ADVANTAGES

ADVANTAGES

• Enhanced skin wound repair
• Prevents scarring after wounding and surgery

APPLICATIONS

• Burn injury
• Surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic procedure incisions

PUBLICATIONS

• A pulsatile release platform based on photo-induced imine-crosslinking hydrogel promotes scarless wound healing. Zhang, J; et al. Nature Communications. 2021 Mar 15; 12 article number 1670

Mar 9, 2021

Licensing,Co-development

Patent Pending

Preclinical in vivo

Xiaoyang Wu