To help in the fight against antibiotic overuse and resistance, researchers have developed a new wound dressing material that releases antibiotic nanoparticles only when harmful bacteria are present.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] - Biomedical engineers from Brown University have developed a new wound dressing material that releases antibiotic drugs only when harmful bacteria are present in a wound. In a new study, the researchers show that the material could help rapidly clear wound infections to accelerate healing while reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics - a major driver of antibiotic resistance and hard-to-treat "superbug" infections that claim tens of thousands of lives worldwide each year.
The new material is a smart hydrogel loaded with an antibiotic cargo that can be placed directly on a wound under a bandage. The hydrogel is sensitive to an enzyme produced by many different types of harmful bacteria. When the enzyme is present, the hydrogel starts to degrade, releasing the antibiotics trapped inside. But when no harmful bacteria are present, the hydrogel stays intact, safely locking its antibiotic cargo away.
"Antimicrobial resistance is a major problem worldwide, so we need better approaches for how we use antibiotics," said Anita Shukla, a professor in Brown's School of Engineering who led the development of the smart hydrogel. "We've developed a material that releases antibiotics only when harmful bacteria are present, so it limits exposure to antibiotics when they're not needed but still provides these important medications when they are needed."
For the study, which is published in Science Advances, the researchers put their hydrogel material to the test, showing that it is highly selective to the presence of the enzymes produced by common wound infection-causing bacteria, and that it may promote better infection clearance and wound healing compared to a hydrogel dressing commonly used in clinical settings today.
Hydrogels are Jell-O-like materials made largely of water and long, spaghetti-like polymer molecules. The polymers are held together by smaller molecules called crosslinkers, which keep the hydrogel intact. For this new material, the researchers used a crosslinker that degrades when it comes into contact with enzymes called beta-lactamases, which are produced by a wide variety of bacteria. That degradation allows the hydrogel structure to fall apart and release the antibiotic cargo inside.
