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Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here. Sometimes a wound requires a bandage,

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Speaker 1: But what if that bandage wasn't just a passive way

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Speaker 1: to prevent infection. What if a bandage could play an

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Speaker 1: active role in diagnosis and recovery. This idea that bandages

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Speaker 1: can be smart is behind a new invention by a

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Speaker 1: team of engineers at Tufts University. The team developed a

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Speaker 1: flexible bandage less than three millimeters thick that surround an

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Speaker 1: eighth of an inch that actively monitors chronic wounds and

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Speaker 1: then responds by delivering wound specific drug treatments to promote healing.

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Speaker 1: In a news release, co authors samirsan Kusl, a PhD

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Speaker 1: and professor of electrical and Computer engineering at Tufts University

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Speaker 1: School of Engineering, said, we've been able to take a

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Speaker 1: new approach to bandages because of the emergence of flexible electronics.

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Speaker 1: In fact, flexible electronics have made many wearable medical devices possible,

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Speaker 1: but bandages have changed little since the beginnings of medicine.

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Speaker 1: We are simply applying modern technology to an ancient art

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Speaker 1: and the hopes of improving outcomes for an intractable problem.

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Speaker 1: The research, if successful in clinical settings, could transform the

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Speaker 1: future of bandages. This could be an important advancement for

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Speaker 1: people with chronic skin wounds that are difficult to heal,

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Speaker 1: such as those arising from burns or diabetes. The smart

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Speaker 1: bandages have pH and temperature sensors to measure the primary

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Speaker 1: markers of wound healing. The pH balance for optimal wound

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Speaker 1: healing is a range from five point five to six

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Speaker 1: point five, while wounds that are not healing will have

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Speaker 1: a pach range above six point five. An elevated temperature

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Speaker 1: at the wound site indicates inflammation is taking place and

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Speaker 1: that a wound is also not healing. A separate bandage

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Speaker 1: prototype made by the team also takes oxygenation into account,

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Speaker 1: signaling whether a wound is healing optimally. The real time

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Speaker 1: data from the bandages sensors is read by a microprocessor

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Speaker 1: that can then signal an on demand antibiotic release, creating

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Speaker 1: a better environment four wounds to heal. The next step

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Speaker 1: for Toughs University's smart bandages is to test them in

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Speaker 1: a clinical setting and see how the concept stacks up

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Speaker 1: against other smart bandages, including one designed by researchers at

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Speaker 1: the University of Nebraska that uses a smartphone as the

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Speaker 1: remote control to deliver medication. Today's episode was written by

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Speaker 1: Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff

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Speaker 1: that stuff at t public dot com slash brain Stuff.

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Speaker 1: For more on this and lots of other smart topics,

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Speaker 1: visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com