Diamond-Studded Silk Dressings for Luxury Wound Care
Written by Daphne Crum
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Edited by Kelly Chau
May 2, 2021
Are diamond-studded silk bandages too luxurious to be true? Think again! These alternative wound coverings might sound unnecessarily over-the-top, but hybrid nanodiamond-silk dressings could function as healthful and cost-effective solutions for treating serious wounds. Physicians redress wounds over and over again to check on the patient’s healing progress and to monitor the damaged tissues for infections. Hiding the swelling, heat, and redness associated with infection, standard bandages have to be removed to check for these symptoms, ultimately irritating the healing skin further and exposing the wound to even more bacteria circulating through a hospital. Determined to innovate the solution to these problems, Dr. Asma Khalid and her research team at RMIT University, Melbourne, have conducted the necessary tests to prove that the revolutionary antibacterial properties and heat detection capabilities of nanodiamond-silk dressings have the potential to revolutionize the medical bandage industry.
Preventing infections from a wound site is an incredibly difficult task, but doctors would experience less anxiety if they could cover a wound with a dressing specifically designed to fend off certain types of bacteria. Gram-negative bacteria are a leading type of bacteria responsible for causing infections in wounds, and antibiotics are often not strong enough to kill them. When tested in the lab, the nanodiamond-silk dressing membranes stopped two gram-negative bacterial strains, E. coli and P. aeruginosa, from infecting tissue cells over 95% of the time (Khalid, 2020). Polyethylene oxide polymer woven into the dressings might be responsible for this protective property, but there is still speculation as to why such high antibacterial efficiency exists (Khalid, 2020).
Of course, every wound is different. Infections are bound to occur regardless of what a dressing is composed of. So when do diamonds come into the picture? The point of incorporating nanodiamonds into the wound dressing is to detect temperature change at the site of the wound. Diamonds contain a negatively charged nitrogen vacancy, a defect in its chemical structure capable of emitting magnetic waves. The lengths of those waves change when the diamond experiences the slightest shift in temperature, so diamonds can act like tiny thermometers for an infected wound giving off heat (Khalid, 2020). Imagine how incredible it would be to detect temperature changes associated with wound infection and inflammation without ever needing to take the dressing off! Hospitals could cut back on how often they need to purchase and apply new wound dressings, and patients could evade the constant pain of dressing removal.
And why use silk? These fibers make up for the extracellular matrices in skin and tissues that promote healing. Because the extracellular matrix surrounding a wound might be inflamed by infection, porous silk fabric can act as a substitute to supply the scaffolding that the extracellular matrix typically provides for new cells to latch onto and rebuild. Silk bandages would even allow for a constant flow of oxygen and nutrients while healing progresses (Brown et al., 2018; Khalid et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2019). Fabricating a wound dressing that incorporates the unique characteristics of nanodiamonds and silk would hold the manufacturing of hospital grade bandages to a new standard of excellence.
The medical implications of a wound dressing that can simultaneously reduce invasive wound treatment, promote healing, and signal the earliest signs of infection is astounding. Who knew we would be looking to nanodiamonds and silk to innovate such an achievement!
References
Brown, M. S., Ashley, B., & Koh, A. (2018). Wearable Technology for Chronic Wound
Monitoring: Current Dressings, Advancements, and Future Prospects. Frontiers in
Bioengineering and Biotechnology. 6, 47.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2018.00047
Khalid, A., Bai, D., Abraham, A. N., Jadhav, A., Linklater, D., Linklater, D., Matusica A.,
Nguyen D., Murdoch, B. J., Zakhartchouk, N., Dekiwadia, C, Reineck, P., Simpson, D., Vidanapathirana, A. K., Houshyar, S., Bursill, C. A., Ivanova, E. P., & Gibson, B. C. (2020). Electrospun nano diamond–Silk Fibroin Membranes: A Multifunctional Platform for Biosensing and Wound-Healing Applications. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, 12(43), 48408-48419.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.0c15612
Liu, Y., Zhou, S., Gao, Y., & Zhai, Y. (2019). Electrospun Nanofibers as a Wound Dressing for
Treating Diabetic Foot Ulcer. Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. 14, 130–143,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajps.2018.04.004