Silk and nanodiamond wound dressings sense infections

In research the smart wound dressings made of silk and nanodiamonds effectively sensed wound temperature, an early sign of infection, promoted healing and reduced infection from certain bacteria.

Senior researcher Professor Brant Gibson said it offered a solution to the global challenge of wound care and healing.

"Traditional wound management presents a significant challenge for clinicians, who have to regularly check for infection by looking for signs of redness, heat and swelling. However, once these visual signs appear, inflammation and infection are far advanced, making therapies or interventions substantially more challenging.

"This new technology would aid clinicians to detect infections earlier and non-invasively without the painful procedure of dressing removal."

To incorporate the heat sensing capability, the team turned to diamonds which are known to detect biological temperature to a highly precise level.

"By embedding nanodiamonds into silk fibres using an electrospinning process, we've been able to develop a naturally derived wound dressing that can sense infections," Vice-Chancellor Fellow at RMIT Dr Asma Khalid, explained.

"The heat sensing capability opens the possibility of contactless wound monitoring by clinicians who would be able to obtain information on the wound's status from the nanodiamond temperature readout."

"These leading causes of wound or surgical infections in healthcare settings are increasingly resistant to most available antibiotics," Dr Khalid said.

"We were very excited to find the nanodiamond silk membranes showed an extremely high antibacterial resistance to gram negative bacteria," she said.

The study shows the smart membranes can detect early signs of infection and protect wounds from certain bacteria and infection, while also maintaining the flow of oxygen and nutrients to the area.

The research is published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces