As our knowledge increases on the human body, why should we still be waiting around for our wounds to heal? There are already materials being used in the industry to treat burns and sores, in addition to implants being used to help improve bone repair. It has only been a matter of time before the invention of materials to be used to drive the healing process. Now, thanks to Doctor Ben Almquist and his team at Imperial College London, we have just that. Traction force-activated payloads, or TrAPs, improve the way our body heals itself.
Incorporating TrAPs into already existing medical materials work to increase wound repair. Our body’s cells pull on the TrAPs while moving through the collagen within our wounds, while activating healing proteins that tell our cells to grow and multiply. Healing methods that can already be found in nature are mimicked by this technique. In addition, the materials used are completely human-made, so this makes the recreation easy in any lab. This results in the new technique of TrAPs being safe and effective.
The future of medicine is here. TrAPs can affectively treat injuries raging from fractured bones to damaged nerves. With these improvements and advancements in the medical field, injuries will soon become a worry in the past.
Imperial College London. (2019, January 7). New materials could ‘drive wound healing’ by harnessing natural healing methods. ScienceDaily. Retrieved January 17, 2019 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/01/190107075551.htm
