The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project targets treatment of ocular trauma, in particular corneal injuries. Ocular trauma treatment requires advanced surgical equipment and specialty surgical centers. The Corneal Transplant Market, currently at 40000 per year in the US is expected to grow at 10.8% from 2017 to 2023. The project targets the wound care market of $18.22 billion (2016), expected to reach $26.24 billion (2023). The societal impact entails enabling rapid care provision to patients like soldiers in combat, to trauma and elderly and pediatric patients, as well as reduction of operative and post-operative costs. The technology can be extended to repairing tissues such as lung, liver, heart or kidneys, expanding its reach and medical benefits to larger populations. This novel chemistry platform aims toward tissue adhesion, but the chemistry could be slightly altered to make materials for a broader range of biomedical applications. Study of such novel material platforms, like understanding of structure-property relationships, offers numerous teaching and outreach opportunities involving students from subject disciplines spanning chemistry, material sciences, chemical, mechanical, and electrical engineering to biology.
This I-Corps project has developed a modified hydrogel to make antimicrobial, hemostatic and highly adhesive glue for surgical applications. This is a material platform to make cost-effective, sutureless, and user-friendly adhesives to heal injury to biological tissue and save operative and post-operative time and cost. The current primary needs for ocular trauma surgery entail operative and postoperative time and cost reduction. Currently, there are no such Food and Drug Administration-approved material platforms to replace the presently used techniques of suturing effectively. The material is expected to enjoy biocompatibility, biodegradability, no toxicity and excellent adhesion to tissues, even in the presence of body fluids. The platform may also aid in blood coagulation, facilitate healing and inhibit bacterial growth. This innovation will potentially circumvent the limitations of current surgical and post-operative approaches in corneal repair, and in the future may be extended to repair of other human tissues.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
