Zwitterionic Gels for Wound Healing

Melissa Krebs

mdkrebs@mines.edu

Impaired wound healing following injury in diabetics represents a major clinical problem, resulting in prolonged hospitalizations and significant healthcare expenditures. Two-thirds of all non-traumatic amputations are preceded by a diabetic wound, and every 30 seconds a lower limb is lost to a diabetic wound. The impaired healing of diabetic wounds has been shown to be multifactorial, however, a central pathogenic feature of diabetic wounds is chronic inflammation. Increasing evidence suggests that chronic inflammation contributes to the pathogenesis of diabetic wounds through persistent activation of pro-inflammatory pathways and increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress. The objective of this work is to develop a clinically applicable topical therapeutic delivery system for wounds. We hypothesize that a zwitterionic gel can be developed and tuned to provide topical therapeutic delivery to promote resolution of the chronic inflammatory response and decrease oxidative stress and correct the diabetic wound healing impairment. We are looking for a student interested in helping fabricate and characterize the materials, and measure release profiles.

Grand Challenge: Engineer better medicines

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742706119307548?via%3Dihub https://pubs.rsc.org/is/content/articlelanding/2016/ra/c6ra03009b#!divAbstract https://krebslab.com/research/

Professor Melissa Krebs and PhD student Michael Stager