{"id":405,"date":"2016-12-07T16:38:30","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T00:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/updates\/?p=216"},"modified":"2016-12-07T16:38:30","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T00:38:30","slug":"researchers-develop-novel-wound-healing-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/2016\/12\/07\/researchers-develop-novel-wound-healing-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers develop novel wound healing technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published as a WSU News article<\/a> written by Tina Hilding<\/em><\/p>\n

A Washington State University research team has successfully used a mild electric current to take on and beat drug-resistant bacterial infections, a technology that may eventually be used to treat chronic wound infections.<\/span><\/p>\n

The researchers report on their work in the online edition of npj Biofilms and Microbiomes (http:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41522-016-0003-0<\/a>). It has also been featured in the Association of University Technology Managers newsletter, in\u00a0Phys.org<\/a>, and the Economic Times<\/a> in India.<\/p>\n

Led by Haluk Beyenal, the team used an antibiotic in combination with the electric current to kill all of the highly persistent Pseudomonas aeruginosa PAO1 bacteria in their samples.<\/p>\n

These bacteria are responsible for chronic and serious infections in people with lung diseases, such as cystic fibrosis, and in chronic wounds. They also often cause pneumonia for people who are on ventilators and infections in burn victims.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t believe it. Killing most of the persister cells was unexpected,\u201d said Beyenal, who is the Paul Hohenschuh Distinguished Professor in WSU\u2019s Gene and Linda Voiland School of Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering. \u201cThen we replicated it many, many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biofilm aids antibiotic resistance<\/h2>\n

Bacterial resistance is a growing problem around the world. While antibiotics were a miracle drug of the 20th century, their widespread use has led to drug-resistant strains of bacteria. In the U.S., at least 2 million infections and 23,000 deaths are attributable to antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.<\/p>\n

When doctors use antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, many of the bacteria die. Bacteria that form a slime layer (called a biofilm), however, are more difficult to kill because antibiotics only partially penetrate this protective layer. Subpopulations of \u201cpersister\u201d cells survive treatment and are able to grow and multiply, resulting in chronic infections.<\/p>\n

Electronic scaffold weakens bacteria<\/h2>\n
\"cell-stress-web\"<\/a>
Researchers used electric current to kill \u201cpersister\u201d cells that cause chronic infections. The frames to the right show cells that are under stress from the e-scaffold treatment.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the new study, the researchers used an \u201ce-scaffold,\u201d a sort of electronic band-aid made out of conductive carbon fabric, along with an antibiotic to specifically tackle these persister cells.<\/p>\n

The e-scaffold creates an electrical current that produces a low and constant concentration of hydrogen peroxide, an effective disinfectant, at the e-scaffold surface. The hydrogen peroxide disrupts the biofilm matrix and damages the bacteria cell walls and DNA, which allows better antibiotic penetration and efficacy against the bacteria.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt turns out the hydrogen peroxide is really hard on biofilms,\u2019\u2019 said Doug Call, a professor in WSU\u2019s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and co-author on the paper.<\/p>\n

Patent filed; companies express interest<\/h2>\n

Researchers have tried electrical stimulation as a method to kill bacteria for more than a century but only saw mixed results.<\/p>\n

Beyenal\u2019s team determined the conditions necessary for the electrochemical reaction to produce hydrogen peroxide. The current has to be carefully controlled to assure the correct reaction at an exact rate. Their method does not damage surrounding tissue, and the bacteria are unable to develop resistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe pushed past the observation and got to the mechanism,\u2019\u2019 said Call. \u201cIf you can explain why it works, then you can move forward, describe the limitations and hopefully augment the effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The researchers have filed a patent application and are working to commercialize the process. Several companies have contacted WSU to discuss commercialization. They also hope to begin conducting clinical tests.<\/p>\n

Fuel cell failure leads to discovery<\/h2>\n

Similar to the way that penicillin was discovered by accident, the research to develop the e-scaffold came out of the Beyenal group\u2019s failed attempt to improve fuel cells, he said. When the researchers figured out they could only produce a small amount of electric current for their fuel cell cathode, they decided to see if they could use the process for a different purpose.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs engineers, we are always trying to find solutions to a problem, so we decided to use bad cathodes to control biofilm growth \u2013 and it worked. Our inspiration came from the fundamental work to understand its mechanism,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Along with Beyenal and Call, Sujala T. Sultana, a graduate student in the Voiland School, was a lead author on the paper. The work was supported by Beyenal\u2019s National Science Foundation CAREER award (No. 0954186).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published as a WSU News article written by Tina Hilding A Washington State University research team has successfully used a mild electric current to take on and beat drug-resistant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":126,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"wsuwp_university_location":[],"wsuwp_university_org":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_location?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"wsuwp_university_org","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.wsu.edu\/innovation\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wsuwp_university_org?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}