INKredible: This hydrogel made from squid ink has accelerated wound-healing properties

Words by: Marc Erickson Mosqueda
Layout by: Alvin Kyla Shen Chua

Wound-healing has been one of the common topics of research recently due to the pervasiveness of traumatic injuries and complications that result from chronic diseases like diabetes. Current wound therapies and medical procedures may not be able to address said issues, and in some cases the wound will not even properly heal. The delayed healing process may compromise the lifestyle and comfort of the patient, in addition to incurring medical expenses for extensive therapy and repeated treatments. To address these medical concerns, biopolymers (natural polymers derived from living organisms) have been the target of research in order to develop an innovative way to treat chronic wounds.

Professors from the Department of Chemistry in the UST — College of Science, Karen Santiago, RCh, LPT, PhD, and Asst. Professor Jolleen Natalie Balitaan, MSc., and other co-authors have studied a newly-discovered polysaccharide hydrogel that showed potential in healing wounds. β-chitin (a type of polysaccharide) was derived and biorefined from squid pen wastes, which was then mixed with other chemicals to create a biocompatible hydrogel. Experiments conducted showed that the indirect application of hydrogel on the wounds of zebrafish (a model animal for biomedical research) led to the significant acceleration of wound healing and contraction. Moreover, the created hydrogel did not cause harm to the tissues of the zebrafish, thus the term “biocompatible”.

This is the first research publication that studied and developed biocompatible hydrogels that possess accelerated wound-healing properties derived from marine-food waste. As of today, the newly discovered hydrogel shows promise as a healing agent that can be used for wound care therapy. Further research is needed to explain and understand why the hydrogel has wound-healing capabilities.

REFERENCE:

Balitaan, J. N. I., Hsiao, C.-D., Yeh, J.-M., & Santiago, K. S. (2020). Innovation inspired by nature: Biocompatible self-healing injectable hydrogels based on modified-β-chitin for wound healing. International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. doi:10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2020.06.129