Hi-tech wound dressings

Jan 22 2009 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A £1.1m project is aiming to create smart wound dressings which will heal in a fraction of time it takes the body to recover naturally.

A consortium made up of biotechnology company SensaPharm and DNA tester Complement Genomics, which are both based in Sunderland, plus regenerative medicine company Neotherix and the National Physical Laboratory in London, are working on the ground-breaking RegeniTherix project.

Teesside Hospitals NHS Trust and Durham and Nottingham Universities are also helping with the research, which started last summer after the partners secured funding.

Neil Sullivan, director of SensaPharm, said: “The Government under the Technology Strategy Board put up half the money and we all put up half the money. They want to see a commercial product come out of it.

“It’s a three-year project and we’re started to see results already. We are taking up clinical samples with Teesside hospitals and hopefully in a year or so we’ll start to see something.”

The smart dressing, known as a bioresorbable scaffold, is coated with a special gel which samples the wound, then is removed and tested while the scaffold remains in place.

It allows the wound to be treated with appropriate medication to regenerate and repair tissue, allowing it to heal more quickly. It will be especially useful for patients suffering chronic wounds, such as those with diabetes who often end up with ulcerated cuts which refuse to heal.

Dr Sullivan said: “We are trying to accelerate the wound healing process. It’s a succession of steps from the inflammation and we are trying to condense these steps so they happen in a shorter time. Sometimes you will need to kick start it – taking stuff out or putting stuff in

“We are all coming together ... between us, we will measure how well the wound will heal.”

Dr Sullivan began driving the idea forwards after meeting representatives from York-based Neotherix at a European networking event.

He said: “We sat together and hacked it out, decided the partners we wanted and put the thing together.”

SensaPharm is researching the protein aspect of the project and will develop a handheld scanner to assess the healing process, Neotherix has developed the scaffold and the novel gel and the National Physical Laboratory is carrying out the scientific measurements.

DNA testing company Complement Genomics is working on gene markers, using tissue samples from patients at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough.

Complement Genomics’ chief executive Louise Allcroft said: “We are looking at it from the genetics side, taking a sample from the site of the wound as the nurses are dressing it.

“If people have diabetes for example and they get a pin prick on their heel, the wound doesn’t heal and they get this gaping, ulcerated wound.

“The gene markers will indicate whether a wound is likely to heal normally without help or whether the patient is likely to need additional medication. It will have a massive impact on the NHS and a massive impact on the quality of life in these patients,” said Ms Allcroft.