Personalised Bioelectronics for Epithelial Repair

Care of chronic wounds constitutes an enormous socioeconomic burden to the European Healthcare system calling for new strategies to support healing for wounds at risk.

As a restored epithelium will outperform any artificial scaffold in protecting the underlying tissue, fast re-epithelialization is the primary goal.

In culture models of wound healing, we have shown that direct current stimulation (DCs) makes epithelial ruptures close up to three times faster, and that the key to success is dosage. This aspect is overlooked in previous clinical studies.

Typically, DCs thresholds established in cultures are lost in translation, because of the lack of technologies able to support DCs on the skin. In ProBER we will change this.

We will exploit technologies for making conformal, metal free, biocompatible DCs electrodes for skin developed in the ERC StG SPEEDER.

By focussing on personalisation of the bioelectronic wound dressing we will ensure that the same efficient parameter space established in culture models can be precisely replicated on actual wounds. Our goal is a fabrication pipeline with wound dressings tailored to the wound.

We will collect information on wound size and shape using LIDAR 3D scanning, and feed this, as well as impedance measurements, to an automated personalisation algorithm.

Personalisation extends beyond fabrication as the ProBER wound dressing will include integrated impedance sensors to ensure that DCs is adapted to the healing progress.

In ProBER, we will prepare our promising concept for subsequent clinical studies, which requires a functional concept for fabrication and proof-of-concept demonstration.

We will co-develop our wound dressing together with stakeholders in healthcare, and work to protect IP, recruit strategic partners and form alliances for clinical translation.