Scientists from Johns Hopkins created a type of special material called hydrogel composite that looks and acts like real tissue. They tested it on animals with Crohn’s disease-related problems near the anus, and it helped them heal better than before.
A recent research study was done using rats to see if it could help with Crohn’s disease. The study had encouraging results for treating an issue called “perianal fistulas” which often comes with this condition. Scientists from Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Whiting School of Engineering worked together to create a hydrogel and stem cells that can break down over time.
Crohn’s disease is a type of digestive illness that affects more than three million Americans. One complication sometimes seen in people with this disease is called perianal fistulas. This means that there is an inflamed tunnel between the anus and skin, causing pain, swelling, bleeding and discharge. Often surgery needs to be used to treat it, but it doesn’t work well for more than half of the people who try it.
Johns Hopkins researchers have come up with an injectable gel that contains stem cells. This gel is special because when injected into fistula tracts, it heals them six times faster than a surgery would! These findings were reported in the journal Science Advances.
Dr. Florin M. Selaru, who works at Johns Hopkins Medicine and is a professor of medicine, said that many people in their late teens and early twenties are diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. This can cause serious health issues such as perianal fistulas, which is very hard to treat. However, this study might offer these patients a chance for better treatment options and improve the quality of their lives.
Researchers found that injecting stem cells around fistula tracts could help with healing. However, the stem cells wouldn’t stay at the site long enough to actually help the healing process. But, this new type of gel can be injected directly into a person’s fistula tract and contains nanofiber fragments to hold the stem cells in place. This will help tissue regeneration and make sure things heal properly!
Selaru explains that a special gel was developed which works like a delivery system to the injury site. This gel builds something called a scaffold around the stem cells that help with the healing process. Results showed that using this gel helped reduce the size of an injury, like a fistula, by six times compared to surgery.
The researchers found something that could be very useful for fixing injuries in the future. This is exciting news for people with chronic injuries. Hai-Quan Mao is one of the senior authors of the study, and he’s a professor at Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.
Scientists have tested a special gel created by them, but they need to do more tests to be sure that it really works. They want to make the gel even better and think about using foam as part of it.
This article talks about how scientists experimented with a unique combination of nanofibers and hydrogel on rats with Crohn’s disease in order to help them heal perianal fistulas better. The experiment was published by Ling Li, Zhi-Cheng Yao, Alyssa Parian, Yueh-Hsun Yang, Jeffrey Chao, Jason Yin, Kevan J. Salimian, Sashank K. Reddy, Atif Zaheer, Susan L. Gearhart, Hai-Quan Mao and Florin M. Selaru in Science Advances journal on the 4th of January 2023.
The study was funded by three organisations, namely The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, the National Institutes of Health, and the Atran Foundation. Mao and Reddy, two inventors working on this project, have one patent issued and two patents pending related to a type of hydrogel composite filed by Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures. None of the other authors in this project have any conflicts of interest.
