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H2020Individual fellowship2018–2019

ELECTRO-HEAL · Electroactive Materials based Bandage for Accelerated Wound Healing

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2018-01-01 → 2019-12-31
EU contribution
€195,455
Participants
1
Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Electroactive Materials based Bandage for Accelerated Wound Healing

Currently, more than 10 million people in Europe suffer from chronic wounds such as venous and pressure ulcers and an estimated 2–4% of European health care budgets is allocated for their care. According to National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, the estimated cost of wound care in 2012-2013 was about £5b. This figures will increase with demographic changes pointing to the rise in the population of elderly people (aged over 65). In the UK alone, the elderly population is predicted to increase from 9.5m (2005) to 13m (2025). Therefore, there is a need to develop advanced and efficient wound care products to ensure the health care system remain sustainable while attempting to improve better quality of life for the people. Wound healing can be accelerated by using electrical stimulation. But, the current electrical stimulation technology is complex, non-portable, requires external power, and can only be used in hospitals. These issues along with the high-cost prohibit the use of existing method by the lay person and discourages self-health management. ELECTROHEAL aims to overcome these challenge and develop a simple, cost effective and disposable electroactive wound dressing or bandage to accelerate the wound healing process. Two main objectives of ELECTROHEAL programme are to: Obj1: Establish the suitability of piezoelectric amino acid crystals for wound healing. Obj2: Develop a non-invasive method for wound healing based on a smart bandage covered by biocompatible glycine piezoelectric materials.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Wound healing can be accelerated by using wound dressing impregnated with biochemical agents and biophysical methods such as electrical stimulation (ES). The current ES technology is complex, non-portable, costly and requires external power. ELECTROHEAL is planned to develop a simple, cost effective and disposable wound dressing or bandage to accelerate the wound healing process.The Amino Acid Glycine (AAG) will be used to accelerate the wound healing. The role of biochemical activity of Glycine for wound healing is well established as AAG is traditionally used as an edible nutrient. However, there is no study showing the electroactive properties of AAG contributing to wound healing process as the ferroelectric properties of AAG were not known. A simple wearable and disposable dressing or bandage with embedded AAG will be developed. The bandage containing ferroelectric glycine crystals will generate charge continuously in response to either pressure from regeneration of wound tissue, weight bearing, motion of the body or body temperature. With electroactive bandage in contact with injured skin, the produced electric charge will be directly applied to the wound and this will lead to faster wounds healing by promoting the growth of normal skin. Further the bandage with glycine could also reduce infection due to its polar ferroelectric characteristics. This will enable self-health management of wounds and trigger transformation in healthcare systems. This project opens new avenues for faster wound healing as both biochemical and electroactive properties could be used and ELECTROHEAL aims to achieve this. The innovative use of biocompatible and biodegradable materials for development of a simple and disposable wound dressing will certainly open up a new approach in wound healing based on ES.

Original text from CORDIS.

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Data: CORDIS, © European Union