New York, June 12: Your painful, hard-to-treat sores may soon be a thing of the past as scientists have developed a regenerative bandage that may quickly heal them without using drugs, an advance which may help make healing of wounds in diabetics faster.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that the bandage healed diabetic wounds 33 per cent faster than one of the most popular bandages currently on the market.
"The novelty is that we identified a segment of a protein in skin that is important to wound healing, made the segment and incorporated it into an antioxidant molecule that self-aggregates at body temperature to create a scaffold that facilitates the body's ability to regenerate tissue at the wound site," said lead author Guillermo Ameer from the Northwestern University in Illinois, US.
The logic behind the regenerative bandage is laminin -- a protein found in most of the body's tissues including the skin.
Laminin sends signals to cells, encouraging them to differentiate, migrate and adhere to one another. The team identified a segment of laminin -- 12 amino acids in length -- called A5G81 that is critical for the wound-healing process.
They incorporated A5G81 into an antioxidant hydrogel bandage that it previously developed in the laboratory. The antioxidant nature also helps counters inflammation.
Hydrogel liquid can form the exact shape of the wound which makes this bandage better than others.
"Wounds have irregular shapes and depths. Our liquid can fill any shape and then stay in place. Other bandages are mostly based on collagen films or sponges that can move around and shift away from the wound site," Ameer said.
The team also used animal models to test the effectiveness and found no adverse effects of the bandage on the animals.
Ameer also added that their bandage can be rinsed off with cool saline, so the regenerating tissue remains undisturbed.
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Panaji (PTI): As part of a crackdown against tourist establishments violating laws and safety norms in the aftermath of the Arpora fire tragedy, Goa authorities on Saturday sealed a renowned club at Vagator and revoked the fire department NOC of another club.
Cafe CO2 Goa, located on a cliff overlooking the Arabian Sea at Vagator beach in North Goa, was sealed. The move came two days after Goya Club, also in Vagator, was shut down for alleged violations of rules.
Elsewhere, campaigning for local body polls, AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal said the fire incident at Birch by Romeo Lane nightclub at Arpora, which claimed 25 lives on December 6, happened because the BJP government in the state was corrupt.
An inspection of Cafe CO2 Goa by a state government-appointed team revealed that the establishment, with a seating capacity of 250, did not possess a no-objection certificate (NOC) of the Fire and Emergency Services Department. The club, which sits atop Ozrant Cliff, also did not have structural stability, the team found.
The Fire and Emergency Services on Saturday also revoked the NOC issued to Diaz Pool Club and Bar at Anjuna as the fire extinguishers installed in the establishment were found to be inadequate, said divisional fire officer Shripad Gawas.
A notice was issued to Nitin Wadhwa, the partner of the club, he said in the order.
Campaigning at Chimbel village near Panaji in support of his party's Zilla Panchayat election candidate, Aam Aadmi Party leader Kejriwal said the nightclub fire at Arpora happened because of the "corruption of the Pramod Sawant-led state government."
"Why this fire incident happened? I read in the newspapers that the nightclub had no occupancy certificate, no building licence, no excise licence, no construction licence or trade licence. The entire club was illegal but still it was going on," he said.
"How could it go on? Couldn't Pramod Sawant or anyone else see it? I was told that hafta (bribe) was being paid," the former Delhi chief minister said.
A person can not work without bribing officials in the coastal state, Kejriwal said, alleging that officers, MLAs and even ministers are accepting bribes.
