From the Michigan Tech media release:<\/p>\n
\nDiabetic foot ulcers can take up to 150 days to heal. A biomedical engineering team wants to reduce it to 21 days.<\/h2>\n
They\u2019re planning to drop the healing time by amplifying what the body already does naturally: build layers of new tissue pumped up by nitric oxide.<\/strong> In patients with diabetes, impaired nitric oxide production lessens the healing power of skin cells, and the Centers for Disease Control reports that 15 percent of Americans living with Type 2 diabetes struggle with hard-to-heal foot ulcers. However, simply pumping up nitric oxide is not necessarily better. The long-term plan of Michigan Technological University researchers is to create nitric oxide-infused bandages that adjust the chemical release depending on the cell conditions.<\/p>\n
To do that, the researchers first have to figure what\u2019s going on with nitric oxide in skin cells. Assessing nitric oxide under diabetic and normal conditions in human dermal fibroblast cells is the focus of the team\u2019s latest paper, published this week in Medical Sciences (DOI: 10.3390\/medsci6040099).<\/p>\n
Cell-mediated Symphony of Complexity<\/h3>\n
Megan Frost is the interim chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Integrative Physiology as well as an associate professor of biomedical engineering and an affiliated associate professor of materials science and engineering. She runs a polymeric biomaterials lab at Michigan Tech where she works on nitric oxide-releasing technology.<\/p>\n
\u201cNitric oxide is a powerful healing chemical, but it\u2019s not meant to be heavy-handed,\u201d Frost says. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at the profiles of healthy and diabetic cells to find a more nuanced way to recover wound function.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a wound heals, three types of skin cells step in. Macrophages are the first responders\u2014and the most widely studied cells\u2014that arrive within 24 hours of damage. Next, fibroblasts arrive, which are like the body\u2019s engineers. They help lay down the extracellular matrix that makes it possible for the next cells, keratinocytes, to do the heavy-lifting and rebuilding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWound healing is a complex, cell-mediated symphony of events, progressing through a series of predictable and overlapping stages,\u201d Frost and her team write in their Medical Sciences paper. When any part of that orchestra is out of tune, the whole process falls flat. Fibroblasts, which are not as well studied as macrophages in the healing process, are a key instrument, and past studies have shown their delayed response in patients with diabetes may be a major factor in slow healing time.<\/p>\n
Nitric Oxide vs. Nitrite<\/h3>\n
That\u2019s where nitric oxide steps in, a kind of chemical metronome to get the process back into the right rhythm. But the body\u2019s dermal orchestra is not so simple\u2014just as playing a metronome louder and louder isn\u2019t necessarily going to make a musician\u2019s timing improve, flooding a wound with nitric oxide isn\u2019t a cure-all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old approach is to add nitric oxide and sit back to see if it works,\u201d Frost says. \u201cWhat we\u2019re finding is that it\u2019s not enough to apply and leave; we have to keep tabs on how much nitric oxide is actually needed.\u201d<\/p>\n
A big problem that Frost and her team address is how nitric oxide is measured in the first place. Current practice substitutes measuring nitrite for nitric oxide\u2014a misleading switch, Frost says, because nitrite is a byproduct with no time signature. While stable nitrite is easier to measure, by itself it cannot relay the real-time healing status like nitric oxide levels can.<\/p>\n
So, Frost\u2019s lab built a nitric oxide-measuring device for their study by hand. That creates a challenge since it means taking measurements is much harder, which limits the dataset size, but Frost has an agreement with Zysense LLC to streamline the building process and produce commercial nitric oxide measurement devices that would improve cell chemistry research.<\/p>\n
Next Steps<\/h3>\n
Collaboration is a key part of the engineering design process. To build a nitric oxide bandage with personalized healing power, the team plans to work next with the UP Portage Health System to gather cell samples from local patients. By expanding their cell samples\u2014and applying the tech to real-world patients\u2014the team will continue to broaden their database while deepening their knowledge of nitric oxide mechanisms.<\/p>\n
In a few years, they plan to have a working bandage prototype, one that leaves off the clunky nitrite proxies and nitric oxide dumps. Instead, patients dealing with diabetic foot ulcers will see a light at the end of the tunnel much sooner than half a year or more\u2014the nitric oxide-releasing bandage could help heal one of health care\u2019s toughest diseases in less than a month.<\/p>\n
Michigan Technological University is a public research university, home to more than 7,000 students from 54 countries. Founded in 1885, the University offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, and social sciences. Our campus in Michigan\u2019s Upper Peninsula overlooks the Keweenaw Waterway and is just a few miles from Lake Superior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n