Georgios Theocharidis, Hyunwoo Yuk, Heejung Roh, Liu Wang, Ikram Mezghani, Jingjing Wu, Antonios Kafanas, Mauricio Contreras, Brandon Sumpio, Zhuqing Li, Enya Wang, Lihong Chen, Chuan Fei Guo, Navin Jayaswal, Xanthi-Leda Katopodi, Nikolaos Kalavros, Christoph S. Nabzdyk, Ioannis S. Vlachos, Aristidis Veves & Xuanhe Zhao
Diabetic foot ulcers and other chronic wounds with impaired healing can be treated with bioengineered skin or with growth factors. However, most patients do not benefit from these treatments. Here we report the development and preclinical therapeutic performance of a strain-programmed patch that rapidly and robustly adheres to diabetic wounds, and promotes wound closure and re-epithelialization. The patch consists of a dried adhesive layer of crosslinked polymer networks bound to a pre-stretched hydrophilic elastomer backing, and implements a hydration-based shape-memory mechanism to mechanically contract diabetic wounds in a programmable manner on the basis of analytical and finite-element modelling. In mouse and human skin, and in mini-pigs and humanized mice, the patch enhanced the healing of diabetic wounds … read more