Nanocapsules Embedded in Medical Dressing Release Antibiotics Only When Bacteria Are Present

Scientists in the United Kingdom are collaborating with teams across mainland Europe and Australia to create an advanced wound dressing that will release antibiotics from nanocapsules when disease-causing pathogenic bacteria are detected. The antibiotics will target treatment before the infection takes hold. The dressing will also change colour when the antibiotic is released, alerting healthcare professionals that there is infection in the wound. This is described as an important step in treating burns patients, particularly children, where infections can lead to toxic shock syndrome, a potentially fatal condition. The project is described in a press release posted on the University of Bath’s website. University researchers and the burns team at the Southwest UK Paediatric Burns Centre at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol are among the project’s UK participants.

The €4.5 million European Commission–funded initiative is a collaboration of 11 partners across Europe and Australia coordinated by Dr Renate Förch at the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research (Germany), which will develop the prototype dressing over four years. The Bacteriosafe project includes chemists, cell biologists, clinicians and engineers. They will not only develop the dressing, but will also work with industry on a pre-pilot scale manufacturing process, so they could be available on the market within a few years after completion of the project. In the United Kingdom,

“Your skin is normally home to billions of ‘friendly’ bacteria, which it needs to stay healthy,” notes University of Bath project leader, Dr Toby Jenkins. “The dressing is only triggered by disease-causing bacteria, which produce toxins that break open capsules containing the antibiotics and dye. This means that antibiotics are only released when needed, which reduces the risk of the evolution of new antibiotic-resistant super-bugs such as MRSA.”

Dr Amber Young, a paediatric burn specialist at the South West UK Paediatric Burn Centre, based at Bristol’s Frenchay Hospital, will be the clinical consultant on the project. ”We’re really excited about this project,” says Young. Every day we see young children who are seriously ill from burns who would hugely benefit from this research. Conventional dressings have to be removed if the skin becomes infected, which slows healing and can be distressing for the child. This advanced dressing will speed up treatment because it is automatically triggered to release antibiotics only when the wound becomes infected, meaning that the dressing will not need to be removed, thereby increasing the chances of the wound healing without scarring,” she explains. “The colour change acts as an early warning system that infection is present, meaning we can treat it much faster, reducing the trauma to the child and cutting the time they have to spend in hospital.”

The researchers have already tested fabric coated with the nanocapsules, which are just one millionth of a millimetre in size. They have been shown to react specifically to harmful bacteria. Over the next four years the European team will be working on integrating the colour change technology into a suitable dressing and looking at cost effective routes for industrial production.

Tags: Bacteriosafe, Max-Planck-Institute, wound dressing