Although more serious wounds might need bandages or stitches, the body is generally proficient at mending itself. However, scientists have created a wound-healing ink that can actively promote the body's ability to mend by introducing the cut to immune-system vesicles. Using a 3D printing pen, the ink can be applied to cuts of any shape, and in lab mice, the device mended wounds almost entirely in just a little under two weeks.

The body's natural "first aid crew" responds to a cut or torn skin by removing any bacterial intruders, regrowing damaged blood vessels and finally building a scar. Numerous wound-healing approaches only aid the body in doing its job...and nothing more.

Antibiotics work to prevent issues from infections while bandages or sutures are used to stop bleeding. However, by including members of a "construction crew" in a bandage or treatment for wound recovery, it may hasten the natural healing process. Particularly, white blood cells or the extracellular vesicles (EVs) produced from them play crucial roles in encouraging blood vessel development and decreasing inflammation during recovery.

On demand healing ink

To create a hydrogel-based wound repair ink that could be painted into incisions of any shape, researchers in China aimed to include these EVs.

As reported in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, the group created a method known as PAINT, or "portable bioactive ink for tissue healing," utilizing sodium alginate and EVs released by macrophages. These elements were put together in a 3D-printing pen, where they combined at the tip and within three minutes created a solid gel at the site of the cut.

Human epithelial cells were moved into the "proliferative," or growth, phase of healing, thanks to the EVs' promotion of blood vessel development and decrease in inflammatory markers. PAINT was also tested on injured lab mice, where it encouraged the growth of collagen fibers.

[Read more about 3D printing technologies at GlobalSpec]

The mice that received PAINT therapy showed almost complete recovery from their wounds after 12 days. The rodents that did not receive it clearly had injuries that were not healing as quickly. This technology could be a viable solution to aid in quick, simple wound healing without the need for complex techniques.