scholarly journals Asymmetric Membranes: A Potential Scaffold for Wound Healing Applications

Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seyyed Mojtaba Mousavi ◽  
Maryam Zarei ◽  
Seyyed Alireza Hashemi ◽  
Seeram Ramakrishna ◽  
Wei-Hung Chiang ◽  
...  

Currently, due to uprising concerns about wound infections, healing agents have been regarded as one of the major solutions in the treatment of different skin lesions. The usage of temporary barriers can be an effective way to protect wounds or ulcers from dangerous agents and, using these carriers can not only improve the healing process but also they can minimize the scarring and the pain suffered by the human. To cope with this demand, researchers struggled to develop wound dressing agents that could mimic the structural and properties of native skin with the capability to inhibit bacterial growth. Hence, asymmetric membranes that can impair bacterial penetration and avoid exudate accumulation as well as wound dehydration have been introduced. In general, synthetic implants and tissue grafts are expensive, hard to handle (due to their fragile nature and poor mechanical properties) and their production process is very time consuming, while the asymmetric membranes are affordable and their production process is easier than previous epidermal substitutes. Motivated by this, here we will cover different topics, first, the comprehensive research developments of asymmetric membranes are reviewed and second, general properties and different preparation methods of asymmetric membranes are summarized. In the two last parts, the role of chitosan based-asymmetric membranes and electrospun asymmetric membranes in hastening the healing process are mentioned respectively. The aforementioned membranes are inexpensive and possess high antibacterial and satisfactory mechanical properties. It is concluded that, despite the promising current investigations, much effort is still required to be done in asymmetric membranes.

Pharmaceutics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paola Franco ◽  
Raffaella Belvedere ◽  
Emanuela Pessolano ◽  
Sara Liparoti ◽  
Roberto Pantani ◽  
...  

In this work, a one-shot process for the simultaneous foaming of polycaprolactone (PCL) and impregnation of mesoglycan (MSG) into the porous structure was successfully attempted. Supercritical carbon dioxide plays the role of the foaming agent with respect to PCL and of the solvent with respect to MSG. The main objective is to produce an innovative topical device for application on skin lesions, promoting prolonged pro-resolving effects. The obtained device offers a protective barrier to ensure a favorable and sterilized environment for the wound healing process. The impregnation kinetics revealed that a pressure of 17 MPa, a temperature of 35 °C, and a time of impregnation of 24 h assured a proper foaming of PCL in addition to the impregnation of the maximum amount of MSG; i.e., 0.22 mgMSG/mgPCL. After a preliminary study conducted on PCL granules used as brought, the MSG impregnation was performed at the optimized process conditions also on a PCL film, produced by compression molding, with the final goal of producing medical patches. Comparing the dissolution profiles in phosphate buffered saline solution (PBS) of pure MSG and MSG impregnated on foamed PCL, it was demonstrated that the release of MSG was significantly prolonged up to 70 times. Next, we performed functional assays of in vitro wound healing, cell invasion, and angiogenesis to evaluate the biological effects of the PCL-derived MSG. Interestingly, we found the ability of this composite system to promote the activation of human keratinocytes, fibroblasts, and endothelial cells, as the main actors of tissue regeneration, confirming what we previously showed for the MSG alone.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (7) ◽  
pp. 2543-2548
Author(s):  
Petya Kasnakova

The games play a special role in rehabilitation practice. The positive emotions they cause in patients cannot be achieved by other methods and means of modern rehabilitation. The role of game playing activity in practice is crucial to the achievement of one of the important tasks in implementing rehabilitation measures, namely to evacuate the patient from the depressed mental state, to distract him from the disease process and to focus on mobilizing his healing powers. The mood, the emotional charge and the dynamics that the games create are particularly suited to awakening the patient's interest in the healing process, their attraction and their active involvement in the rehabilitation activities. The connection between the actions in the game and the movements in the analytical exercises accelerates the formation of motor habits, physical qualities and skills not only in children but also in adult patients with various pathological injuries. Rehabilitation games are suitable for all ages by enhancing the health of the occupants, developing their mental qualities, improving the activity of the vestibular, visual and motor analyzers. The basis of the motor movement training game methodology and the improvement of motor movement skills is the activation of the thought processes and emotional experiences, the development of the functions of the musculoskeletal system, the cardiovascular system and the respiratory system.


Technology united with research and development has evolved as a grave differentiator of the agriculture sector in India including production, processing, and agriculture packing and marketing of given crops. Near about 50 percent of the Indian workforce was engaged in the agriculture sector but its share in GDP was only 14 percent, much lower in comparison to former. Though, certain agriculture items showed a steady annual increase in terms of kilograms per hectare. Agriculture transformed significantly over the past few decades but when it comes to investment in research and development there is a lot more which needs to be done. The paper analyzes the role of various research and development institutions in boosting the growth of the agriculture sector that helps in attaining sustainable agriculture development and self-sufficiency in the production process since independence. It also focusesed on the various issues faced by these development institutions. The findings unveiled that since independence a lot more was done to boost the research and development in the agriculture sector at both the center and state levels but a proper implementation of these policies along with transparency could bring more desirable outcomes than were gained at present.


Author(s):  
L H Baldaniya ◽  
Sarkhejiya N A

Hydrogels are the material of choice for many applications in regenerative medicine due to their unique properties including biocompatibility, flexible methods of synthesis, range of constituents, and desirable physical characteristics. Hydrogel (also called Aquagel) is a network of polymer chains that are hydrophilic, sometimes found as a colloidal gel in which water is the dispersion medium. Hydrogels are highly absorbent (contain ~99.9% water), natural or synthetic polymers. Hydrogel also possess a degree of flexibility very similar to natural tissue, due to its significant water content. It can serve as scaffolds that provide structural integrity to tissue constructs, control drug and protein delivery to tissues and cultures. Also serve as adhesives or barriers between tissue and material surfaces. The positive effect of hydrogels on wounds and enhanced wound healing process has been proven. Hydrogels provide a warm, moist environment for wound that makes it heal faster in addition to its useful mucoadhesive properties. Moreover, hydrogels can be used as carriers for liposomes containing variety of drugs, such as antimicrobial drugs. Hydrogels are water swollen polymer matrices, with a tendency to imbibe water when placed in aqueous environment. This ability to swell, under biological conditions, makes it an ideal material for use in drug delivery and immobilization of proteins, peptides, and other biological compounds. Hydrogels have been extensively investigated for use as constructs to engineer tissues in vitro. This review describes the properties, classification, preparation methods, applications, various monomer used in formulation and development of hydrogel products.


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (28) ◽  
pp. 4622-4646 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huayu Liu ◽  
Kun Liu ◽  
Xiao Han ◽  
Hongxiang Xie ◽  
Chuanling Si ◽  
...  

Background: Cellulose Nanofibrils (CNFs) are natural nanomaterials with nanometer dimensions. Compared with ordinary cellulose, CNFs own good mechanical properties, large specific surface areas, high Young's modulus, strong hydrophilicity and other distinguishing characteristics, which make them widely used in many fields. This review aims to introduce the preparation of CNFs-based hydrogels and their recent biomedical application advances. Methods: By searching the recent literatures, we have summarized the preparation methods of CNFs, including mechanical methods and chemical mechanical methods, and also introduced the fabrication methods of CNFs-based hydrogels, including CNFs cross-linked with metal ion and with polymers. In addition, we have summarized the biomedical applications of CNFs-based hydrogels, including scaffold materials and wound dressings. Results: CNFs-based hydrogels are new types of materials that are non-toxic and display a certain mechanical strength. In the tissue scaffold application, they can provide a micro-environment for the damaged tissue to repair and regenerate it. In wound dressing applications, it can fit the wound surface and protect the wound from the external environment, thereby effectively promoting the healing of skin tissue. Conclusion: By summarizing the preparation and application of CNFs-based hydrogels, we have analyzed and forecasted their development trends. At present, the research of CNFs-based hydrogels is still in the laboratory stage. It needs further exploration to be applied in practice. The development of medical hydrogels with high mechanical properties and biocompatibility still poses significant challenges.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 2289
Author(s):  
Nishata Royan Rajendran Royan ◽  
Jie Sheng Leong ◽  
Wai Nam Chan ◽  
Jie Ren Tan ◽  
Zainon Sharmila Binti Shamsuddin

As one of the fastest-growing additive manufacturing (AM) technologies, fused deposition modelling (FDM) shows great potential in printing natural fibre-reinforced composites (NFRC). However, several challenges, such as low mechanical properties and difficulty in printing, need to be overcome. Therefore, the effort to improve the NFRC for use in AM has been accelerating in recent years. This review attempts to summarise the current approaches of using NFRC as a feeder for AM. The effects of fibre treatments, composite preparation methods and addition of compatibilizer agents were analysed and discussed. Additionally, current methods of producing feeders from NFRCs were reviewed and discussed. Mechanical property of printed part was also dependent on the printing parameters, and thus the effects of printing temperature, layer height, infill and raster angle were discussed, and the best parameters reported by other researchers were identified. Following that, an overview of the mechanical properties of these composites as reported by various researchers was provided. Next, the use of optimisation techniques for NFRCs was discussed and analysed. Lastly, the review provided a critical discussion on the overall topic, identified all research gaps present in the use of NFRC for AM processes, and to overcome future challenges.


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