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Each year in the United States, 1.1 million people suffer from burns that require medical treatment. Surgeries cause more than 100 million injuries. And countless other people suffer from cuts, lacerations and various trauma that lead them to the hospital.
Each of them is an injury that must be protected from infection, but unfortunately, a hospital is not an ideal place to do it. Nosocomial infections are extremely widespread (so much so that the Centers for Disease Control have put in place a program to combat them).
For now, the best method of treatment is to use antibiotics, but these have their own problems.
For example, Chandan Sen, a physiologist and vice-president of research at Indiana University's School of Medicine, and his team decided to reinvent the antibiotic by using electricity to help prevent bacteria from developing an immune system. immunity.
"Many people are developing new antibiotics, do not do it," Sen told the Daily Beast. "Let's ask a more general question: are there ways to overcome these types of infections that are not based on pharmacology, because we know that drug resistance is easy for insects to acquire," he said. -he declares.
The defeat forced Sen to watch how the bacteria stick together.
One of the reasons why the infection is difficult to treat is due to the way the bacteria congregate to create it. They form what is called a biofilm – groups of different types of bacteria that come together and secrete a sticky net that holds them in place inside a wound. Mesh also helps protect bacteria from treatment attempts, making biofilms more resistant to antibiotics than to individual bacteria. According to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health, it is estimated that between 65 and 80% of all infections are caused by these hard-to-treat biofilms.
"When the bacterium chooses to become a biofilm, there is a quorum; they talk to each other and say, "We have a quorum, let's make a biofilm," Sen said. "They have an electrical communication."
They do this either by connecting to each other with the help of microscopic nanowires, or by sending electrical signals in the form of current. But that led Sen and his team to ask, "If we disturb this micro-electrical environment, can we disturb them?"
It turns out that yes.
If a small external electric current passes through a biofilm, the matrix that holds the bacteria together breaks down and the bacteria die, which essentially confuses the signal. Bacteria start sending their messages in the wrong direction because their ions and electrons are attracted incorrectly.
"With this system, you disintegrate the biofilm and this allows the immune system to fight against it. It's cooperation, "he said.
The amount of electricity needed is tiny. In fact, according to Sen, it is well below the amount that the FDA considers to be safe for human exposure. Their ultimate solution is a bandage – a piece of cloth – printed with a silver and zinc polka dot pattern. When the tissue comes in contact with any type of body fluid, the combination produces enough energy to disrupt the bacteria.
"We lit an LED thermometer with this current." Said Sen. "If you touch the fabric, you can not say there is metal. Visually, it looks like peas. "
In one of the experiments performed with the tissue, the team tested it on an infection that had been allowed to spread without treatment for seven days. "Once the biofilms were formed, we intervened with textiles," he said. "The data was so convincing that the Department of Defense has just started a clinical trial."
The current version of the fabric creates an electric field capable of treating wounds a few millimeters deep. They have also developed a second trial version that uses a hearing aid battery, which provides a greater amount of electricity to the silver wound circuitry. This can create a larger field, allowing for larger areas.
Sen said he was excited about how this principle could be developed beyond his bandages, noting that they are about to publish research that shows its effects on other infections, such as those from fungi.
On the whole, Sen thinks it is possible, after more research, to reduce one day the need for the medical community to rely on antibiotics. "We have not done any research on this but I see a clear path," he said.
The first generation of this product is already on the market, sold as a dressing, but it is being approved by the FDA to be used as a treatment for the infection.
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