Rapid Fabrication of Self-Healing, Conductive, and Injectable Gel as Dressings for Healing Wounds in Stretchable Parts of the Body

摘要

Skin wounds on stretchable parts of the body including the elbows, knees, wrists, and nape usually undergo delayed and poor healing due to the interference of their frequent motion. Ordinary dressings that are not flexible enough face difficulty to promote wound healing due to the mismatching between the mechanics of the dressing materials and the wounds. In this study, an injectable, biocompatible, self-healable, and conductive material poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene): poly(styrenesulfonate)/guar slime (PPGS) is developed for healing wounds with various kinds of movements. As a proof-of-principle assay, the healing effect of PPGS is explored on a skin wound model on the nape of rats that often experiences frequent movements. PPGS, which can be prepared within 1 min, successfully accelerates the healing of the wounds. The results suggest that PPGS has great potential in the fields of tissue engineering and biomedicine.