Friday, November 22, 2024
11/22/2024
Project Summary Over 6 million people in the United States are afflicted by chronic ulcers and this number is expected to grow. Wound healing is impaired in these patients, who are often inflicted with other diseases (i.e., diabetes, venous disease, or arterial disease), receiving anti-inflammatory steroid treatment, or receiving chemo- or radiotherapy for cancer. Chronic ulcers can negatively affect patient quality of life and productivity and are a substantial financial burden to the health care system. Patients typically require extended periods of hospitalization and may require over 26 weeks for full recovery. Treatment of diabetic ulcers and related amputations in the U.S. totaled over $10 billion in 2011. Current treatments of non-infected ulcers are costly and have demonstrated mixed results. Most importantly, these treatments do not actively prevent infection, which can often complicate healing and affect long-term stable wound resolution. In the current proposal, we seek to manipulate a unique bioinspired redox chemistry found in mussel adhesive proteins to create a novel, multifunctional nanocomposite adhesive that can potentially promote wound healing while minimizing infection. There are three main objectives to this proposal. Objective 1: Prepare novel antimicrobial adhesive and evaluate its performance. Objective 2: Evaluate the adhesive’s cytocombatibility and its ability to promote healing and prevent infection in culture. Objective 3: Verify candidate adhesives’ ability to promote healing in an infected wound model in diabetic mice. Future work will evaluate adhesive’s ability to promote healing in a larger animal model.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
