Bandage localises adenosine to speed up bone repair

In a proof-of-principle study with mice, the bandage is said to have accelerated callus formation and vascularisation to achieve better bone repair by three weeks.

The research by a team at Duke University in North Carolina points toward a general method for improving bone repair after damage that could be applied to medical products including biodegradable bandages, implant coatings or bone grafts for critical defects. Their results are published in Advanced Materials.

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In 2014, Shyni Varghese, professor of biomedical engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science, and orthopaedics at Duke, was studying how biomaterials made of calcium phosphate promote bone repair and regeneration. Her laboratory discovered that the biomolecule adenosine plays a particularly large role in spurring bone growth.

After further study, they found that the body naturally floods the area around a new bone injury with the pro-healing adenosine molecules, but those locally high levels are quickly metabolised.