Work conducted in the laboratories of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering Chandan Sen, PhD and Sashwati Roy, PhD has led to the development of a dressing that uses an electric field to disrupt biofilm infection.
Bacterial biofilms are thin, slimy films of bacteria that form on some wounds, including burns or post-surgical infections, as well as after a medical device, such as a catheter, is placed in the body. These bacteria generate their own electricity, using their own electric fields to communicate and form the biofilm, which makes them more hostile and difficult to treat. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates 65 per cent of all infections are caused by bacteria with this biofilm phenotype, while the National Institutes of Health estimates that number is closer to 80 per cent.
Researchers at IU School of Medicine are the first to study the practice of using an electric field-based dressing to treat biofilms rather than antibiotics. They discovered the dressing is not only successful in fighting the bacteria on its own, but when combined with other medications can make them even more effective. This discovery has the potential to create changes in the way physicians treat patients with bacterial infections which are resistant to antibiotics. The dressing can also help prevent new biofilm infections from forming in the future.
The dressing electrochemically self-generates 1 volt of electricity upon contact with body fluids such as wound fluid or blood, which is not enough to hurt or electrocute the patient.
Marketing of the dressing for burn care was recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The team is now studying the device's effectiveness in patients recovering from burns.