Improving Wound Healing by Reducing Nosocomial Infections

Overview

Every year, 500,000 people seek medical attention for burns in the United States. Of these, roughly 17% of deaths are caused by infections. The purpose of this experiment was to use hyaluronic acid, silver nanoparticles, and a bacteriophage cocktail to create a hydrogel. Unlike traditional hydrogels which only aid in the protection and healing of wounds, this hydrogel promoted wound healing by increasing cell proliferation while simultaneously disrupting biofilm formation and breaking down Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa . If hyaluronic acid is used in conjunction with colloidal silver and species specific bacteriophages, then cell proliferation in an in vitro wound healing model will increase. To make the bacteriophage cocktail, bacteriophages that target Staphylococcus aureusand Pseudomonas aeruginosa were isolated from sewage samples from the Broward County Treatment plant and were characterized. To test the hypothesis, an OD600 assay was conducted using silver nanoparticles and phages matrix to determine a MIC for the combination followed by application of a hydrogel on a model organism, Human Dermal Fibroblasts. Proliferation and Cell Viability were tested by exposing the Human Dermal Fibroblasts to Vitamin E, Hyaluronic Acid, and the silver nanoparticles. The results supported the hypothesis and cell proliferation increased. Simultaneously, the bacteriophage cocktail and colloidal silver decreased biofilm growth in both Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa w hile not affecting the viability of the cells. This finding is important because it offers a cost effective, non-invasive approach to improving wound healing without the use of antibiotics.

Competition history

• AJAS 2019 Category not listed

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