Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects

A burn is a type of injury to the skin caused by fire, heat, electricity, chemicals, radiation or friction. It occurs in all age groups. Burn wound infection remains the leading cause of skin graft failure and one of the leading causes of burn injury related mortality. Dressings impregnated with silver compounds are the mainstay of treatment for burn wounds. However, many commercially available silver based wound dressings cause trauma upon removal because of adhesion to the wound bed. A recent study has shown that burn dressing related pain is related to more severe depressive and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Furthermore, emerging resistance associated with silver based wound dressings is a growing concern.The overall objective of this project is to develop a new method to deposit both a well-defined poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) hydrogel and a biocide (Ag nanoparticles or N-chloramines) onto wound dressings imparting both antimicrobial and atraumatic properties. This project aims to solve two problems: 1. Exploration of an alternative antibacterial agent to silver in view of the emerging resistance associated with silver based wound dressings. 2. Improvement of the adherence profile of burn dressings. It is hypothesized that 1.the well-defined PEG hydrogel, while repelling cell adherence, can promote cell migration and proliferation underneath it on wounds; 2. The diffuse rate of biocides can be controlled by the network structure of the PEG hydrogel to achieve minimal cytotoxicty and satisfying antibacterial efficacy. The proposal is truly interdisciplinary in nature, informed by the end users' needs and will create invaluable opportunities to train interdisciplinary HQP who can gain research knowledge and expertise spanning from biomedical engineering to clinical wound care practice. It also potentiates a greater opportunity for the commercialization of the basic research to clinical application with support from our partner Smith & Nephew. The availability of a practical and convenient burn wound management system for burn wound victims would definitely contribute to improving the quality of life for these patients and reducing overall healthcare cost in long term.