SBIR-STTR Award

Collagen based biosynthetic materials have profoundly improved the outcome of reconstruction and restoration of congenital defects and traumatic injuries. This has been most apparent for massive burn victims that historically suffered lifelong severe scarring and lost of function following wound closure before the advent of these materials. Unfortunately the failure rate for biosynthetic implants is high, predominantly due to infection. This proposal intends to evaluate the feasibility of incorporating a silver technology directly into collagen biosynthetic scaffolding to impart short duration antimicrobial properties to prevent colonization during the first few critical days following surgical implantation. Currently, collagen implant failure rates exceeding 50 percent due to microbial growth lead to increased hospital stay, cause psychological distress to the patient, and retard healing and rehabilitation. In burns alone, over 51,000 Americans suffer could benefit from improvements in this material with additional benefits extending to plastic and reconstructive surgical applications that are increasingly using biosynthetic implants. It is the aim of this study to determine if antimicrobial activity can be incorporated into these important biomaterials for sustained release to control bioburden follow implantation. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: If successful in reducing bioburden in biomaterials, this chemistry could be added to tissue graft and implant materials as a post treatment to reduce their likelihood of rejection due to infection. This will greatly enhance their effectiveness in healing difficult wounds and restoring to patients normal tissue function and quality of life.

Thesaurus Terms:
antibiotic, antiinfective agent, biomaterial development /preparation, burn, drug design /synthesis /production, slow release drug, surface coating biomaterial compatibility, burn therapy, collagen, implant, silver, tissue support frame, wound healing

Burn injuries represent the most terrifying and horrific trauma imaginable. This image is conditioned, in part, from the appearance of surviving bum victims that have been horribly scarred and disfigured following the healing of their injuries. Fortunately significant advances have been made that prevent these outcomes. Conventional rescue, first aid and emergency trauma have significantly improved survival of badly burned individuals. Moreover, surgical intervention and tissue repair products have greatly improved the quality of healed tissues. A notable improvement is the use of implantable collagen matrices that serve as tissue scaffolding to support the formation of neodermis. This improvement significantly decreases contraction and provides an optimal bed for split thickness grafts which overall significantly shorten healing times and improve cosmetic appearance. However collagen matrices are uniquely susceptible to colonization with bacteria because they are largely devoid of humoral and cellular defense mechanisms. Microbial colonization invariably necessitates removal of the collagen matrix, antimicrobial therapy, and repeat surgical applications. We have shown in Phase I studies that it is practical to impregnate collagen matrix with antimicrobial silver to render it inherently resistant to colonization. This phase II application proposes to extend those findings to optimize the silver impregnation protocol so as to improve collagen matrix implant materials for use in burn and deep tissue repairs and test their efficacy in an in vivo wound model. The ultimate goal of this project is to produce commercially viable silver impregnated collagen matrix that resists microbial contamination.

Thesaurus Terms:
antibiotic, antiinfective agent, biomaterial development /preparation, biomaterial evaluation, burn, drug design /synthesis /production, slow release drug, surface coating biomaterial compatibility, burn therapy, cell proliferation, collagen, fibroblast, implant, keratinocyte, nonhuman therapy evaluation, silver, tissue support frame, wound healing histology, laboratory mouse, tissue /cell culture