Researchers have created biocompatible generators which harvest body motion to produce electrical impulses for medical applications such as wound healing.
Piezoelectric materials such as ceramics and crystals can generate an electrical charge when mechanically stressed, and are used in many devices such as ultrasound transducers, vibration sensors, and cell phones. In medicine, electrostimulation using piezoelectric devices has been shown to be beneficial for accelerating wound and bone fracture healing, maintaining muscle tone in stroke victims, and chronic pain reduction. However, lack of biocompatibility has stalled progress in the field.
Now bioengineers at the University of Wisconsin’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, led by Professor Xudong Wang, have developed implantable piezoelectric therapeutic devices. These thin, flexible devices make use of the piezoelectric properties of non-rigid, nontoxic biological materials such as silk, collagen, and amino acids.
The team came up with a method for self-assembly of small patch-like constructs that use the amino acid lysine as the piezoelectric generator. The self-assembly process incorporates a biocompatible polymer shell that surrounds the lysine as the polymer/lysine solution evaporates. Chemical interactions between the inner layer of lysine and the polymer coating orient the lysine into the crystal structure necessary for it to produce electric current when flexed.
“This work is an outstanding example of using the chemical properties of the materials to create a self-assembling product,” explained David Rampulla, director of the Division of Discovery Science and Technology at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. “The process used is rapid and inexpensive, making production of such wafers for therapeutic applications feasible. That the wafers are biodegradable opens the possibility for creating electrotherapies that could be used to accelerate healing of an injured bone or muscle, for example, and then degrade and disappear from the body.”
In one of a number of tests, wafers were placed in the leg and chest of rats, movements of which compressed the piezoelectric wafers enough to create an electrical output. Blood tests performed after the transplanted wafer dissolved showed normal levels of blood cells and other metabolites, indicating no harmful effects from the dissolved device.
Prof Wang emphasises the simplicity of the elegant work. “We believe the technology opens a vast array of possibilities including real-time sensing, accelerated healing of wounds and other types of injuries, and electrical stimulation to treat pain and other neurological disorders. Importantly, our rapid self-assembling technology dramatically reduces the cost of such devices, which has the potential to greatly expand the use of this very promising form of medical intervention.”
The results were reported in the journal Science.
Source: Medical Xpress
