‘Smart’ hydrogel wound dressing delivers drugs from reservoirs

This makes the sticky and stretchy material release medicine whenever there is a change in skin temperature, as well as turn the light indicator depending on the need, such as when the drug level is low. The hydrogel matrix, a rubbery material consisting mostly of water, is the main component of the stretchable band-aid which is created to strongly bond with gold, aluminum, titanium, glass ceramics and silicon.

A team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has come up with a strong, stretchy, wet bandage and have embedded it with tiny electronics, LED lights and microchannels to deliver drugs.

A stretchable, smart wound dressing includes temperature sensors and drug-delivery channels and reservoirs, embedded in a robust hydrogel matrix. It’s highly flexible and stretches easily so can be applied to any area of the body, including joints like elbows or knees.

Download the Gadgets 360 app for Android and iOS to stay up to date with the latest tech news, product reviews, and exclusive deals on the popular mobiles. Building on this hydrogel, the MIT team has now developed the smart wound dressing. Today, MIT engineers have added one more design. The researchers also created pathways for drugs to flow through the hydrogel, by either inserting patterned tubes or drilling tiny holes through the matrix. Mock drugs can be released at various locations on demand, based on the measured temperatures. When the dressing was placed on skin, it successfully monitored temperature and released drugs based on its readings. “The work has significant implications in understanding bio-adhesion, as well as practical applications such as in hydrogel coatings, biomedical devices, tissue engineering, water treatment, and underwater glues”.

The idea that medical devices might one day cling to our flesh might seem a little creepy – until you see how researchers at MIT are developing a “hydrogel” that could make this prospect a reality, bridging the divide between the human body and electronics.

To overcome those shortcomings, the MIT professor, graduate students Shaoting Lin, Hyunwoo Yuk, German Alberto Parada, postdoc Teng Zhang, Hyunwoo Koo from Samsung Display, and Cunjiang Yu from the University of Houston set out to develop a type of the materials that was “robust, stretchable, and biocompatible” but still able to bond to electronics. “These two systems have drastically different properties”, said Xuanhe Zhao, lead author of the study.

Because conventional glucose sensors implanted in the body spark a foreign-body response from the immune system, the sensors become covered with dense fibres.

For instance, they are now exploring the potential of the hydrogel being a carrier for glucose sensors and neural probes. For example, as implanted, biocompatible glucose sensors, or even soft, compliant neural probes. With collaborators, we are proposing to use robust hydrogel as an ideal material for neural devices, because the hydrogel can be created to possess similar mechanical and physiological properties as the brain.