Scientists at MIT have developed a synthetic system that can stop internal bleeding. This allows more survivors to survive long enough to reach the hospital after trauma. The two components come together to form a clot in a wound, but not elsewhere in the body at risk.
Traumatic events like car accidents can cause internal bleeding, which can be fatal if the patient doesn’t get to the hospital in time. prolong and potentially life-saving.
An MIT team has now developed a synthetic system that can be injected by first responders to stop internal bleeding.
Normally, cells called platelets are attracted to the site of a wound, setting off a cascade of processes that form a sticky clot. A protein called fibrinogen is also important for maintaining the structure of these clots.
The new system consists of two main components: nanoparticles that recruit platelets and a polymer that mimics fibrinogen. The nanoparticles are made of a biocompatible material called PEG-PLGA and have peptides that help bind to activated platelets. This means that they accumulate in areas with high concentrations of platelets, such as wounds, and serve to attract more to that area. Optimized to prevent blood clots from accumulating in potentially dangerous organs such as the lungs.
Importantly, the team also created a crosslinker system with chemical groups on the nanoparticles that bind to fibrinogen-mimetic protein tags. This allows her two components of the synthetic coagulation system to find each other at the wound site and seal more effectively.
“The idea is that once both of these components are circulating in the bloodstream, the targeted component will begin to accumulate at the wound site and bind to the crosslinker as well,” said the lead author of the study. Celestine Hong says. “At high concentrations of both ingredients, you get more cross-linking, which starts to form a glue and aids in the solidification process.”
The team tested the system in a mouse model of internal bleeding and found that the system containing the two components performed about twice as much as the version containing platelet-engaging nanoparticles alone. bottom.
Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done before this can be used clinically, as animal testing does not always apply to humans. It’s an interesting technique that has the potential to save
A study was published in a journal advanced medical materials.
Source: MIT
