A Textile Dressing for Temporal and Dosage Controlled Drug Delivery

TLDR

Chronic wounds fail to heal because essential biological factors are not released in a timely manner, and staged topical therapy has been shown to accelerate healing. The study aims to develop a wound dressing that delivers biomolecules in a predetermined spatial and temporal pattern for effective chronic wound treatment. The dressing is built from composite fibers with a core electrical heater and a hydrogel layer of thermoresponsive drug carriers, enabling individual fibers to be addressed for on‑demand, controlled release of loaded drugs and factors. In vitro the dressing released antibiotics and VEGF on demand to eradicate bacteria and promote angiogenesis, and in a diabetic mouse model VEGF release accelerated wound healing.

Abstract

Abstract Chronic wounds do not heal in an orderly fashion in part due to the lack of timely release of biological factors essential for healing. Topical administration of various therapeutic factors at different stages is shown to enhance the healing rate of chronic wounds. Developing a wound dressing that can deliver biomolecules with a predetermined spatial and temporal pattern would be beneficial for effective treatment of chronic wounds. Here, an actively controlled wound dressing is fabricated using composite fibers with a core electrical heater covered by a layer of hydrogel containing thermoresponsive drug carriers. The fibers are loaded with different drugs and biological factors and are then assembled using textile processes to create a flexible and wearable wound dressing. These fibers can be individually addressed to enable on‐demand release of different drugs with a controlled temporal profile. Here, the effectiveness of the engineered dressing for on‐demand release of antibiotics and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is demonstrated for eliminating bacterial infection and inducing angiogenesis in vitro. The effectiveness of the VEGF release on improving healing rate is also demonstrated in a murine model of diabetic wounds.