A revolutionary ‘super-plaster’ designed in London could help wounds heal faster and better.
Using patented nanotechnology, a team of three from Imperial College London have taken inspiration from an evolutionary conserved delivery mechanism used by bodies in wound healing.
The Sekhmet Biomed team engineered a synthetic version of the same process, allowing them to mimic natural repair and deliver different healing proteins where and when they are needed.
And now the innovation has been shortlisted for a national award.
The technology has been invented by Dr Benjamin Almquist, who serves as Co-Director of the university’s Network of Excellence in Wound Healing, and is now being developed further by biomedical engineering researchers Dr Sara Flod and Dr Magdalene Ho.
The team secured a prize at the university’s WE Innovate enterprise competition, with prizes provided by business education charity ESBF. Now, they’ll compete against nine other talented teams from across the UK in ESBF’s Champion of Champions Competition.
Sara said: “Every year, ten million people in the US alone suffer from wounds that cannot heal on their own. These wounds are not only painful and life-limiting, but they also carry devastating risks such as amputation and even death. As well as the severe impact on patients, the burden on healthcare systems is enormous with costs reaching up to $50 billion annually.
“Current ‘’gold-standard’ care often relies on painful skin grafts, which are not always possible and can leave the patient in repeated cycles of surgeries with long recovery. Alternatives, like skin substitutes, are often inadequate, limited by slow integration and healing, infection risks and high costs.
“Our innovation has the potential to directly address these challenges by delivering faster healing and fewer complications, leading to lower costs and healthier patients.
“In pre-clinical studies, our technology has been shown to accelerate healing up to 2.5 times faster. With faster and better healing, our super plaster has the potential to improve healing of traumatic wounds, reducing need for corrective surgeries, reduce infection risk and hospital stays- and readmission. Unlike existing treatments, it does not rely on added drugs but instead unlocks the body’s own healing power – offering the possibility of greater outcomes for patients and greater efficiency for healthcare systems.”
The Champion of Champions grand final will take place at the Royal Academy of Engineering on Friday 7 November, where the team will compete for a share of the £17,000 prize pot, providing vital seed money to help winners develop their innovation.
Winners will also receive mentoring from business leaders who are members of the Sainsbury Management Fellows network, plus CV packages from PurpleCV and entrepreneurial books from sponsors.
The event, hosted by TV presenter and engineer Rob Bell, is the culmination of a year of ESBF-sponsored enterprise competitions held across UK universities, with thousands of undergraduate and graduates taking part.
Each year, ESBF champions business education for engineers and supports universities by giving them grants to award prizes to engineering and science students who develop ideas that can make a positive impact on society.
On being shortlisted for the grand final, Sara said: “Being part of the Champion of Champions is an incredible opportunity to showcase our idea. It gives us the chance to test ourselves, gain valuable feedback from experts and learn from other great teams. It’s also a chance to grow as a team and as a business, while demonstrating the real potential of our technology.”