Protein Gel Quickly Stops Bleeding 167
Stefan vd Linden writes, "An international team of scientists has discovered a substance to heal bleeding wounds within seconds. They're using a solution of protein molecules that self-organizes into a biodegradable gel. Until now they've only tested it on animals, but the tests were highly successful. From the article: 'Some surgeons are already excited about the material. "I see great potential in the eye field, the gastro-intestinal field, and in neurosurgery," says Dimitri Azar, head of ophthalmology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, US. "In the eye, even a drop of blood will blur your vision for a long time," Azar adds. "A material that would stop the bleeding could lead to a paradigm shift in how we practice surgery in the eye."'"
I already have a protein gel that stops bleeding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:3, Interesting)
It's called platelets. It was invented long ago. Thank goodness, or I would have died the first time my nose bled...
Platelets are fine for small wounds, but they don't do much for larger than a small cut. For external cuts I usually stick it together with a little superglue. I don't expect this will be over the counter though..
in case of massive fragging mix contents with one cup of tea and drink really fast!
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:5, Insightful)
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You know what's going to happen next - stick it in hypodermic darts and shoot them at the enemies - all they'll hear is "phttt" ... and then die of massive blood clots.
Or stick it in an insulin pen (empty out the penfill cartridge and replace the contents with this gel) and stick someone with it - great for hits on foreign dictators and other "inconveniences".
Guaranteed this will be weaponized - and then only the government and terrorists will have it.
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Simple, it can be used without the victim even being aware of it.
I could probably stick you in a crowd and if you even felt it you'd assume it was a minor insect bite or something (30 gauge needles are pretty much painless for a subcutaneous injection, and I get to practice my technique 3 times a day).
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Which is more likely to succeed in a large crowd:
Besides, you're much less likely to "get your kill" at extreme range with a rifle, and guaranteed to get it at close range with a hypo.
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Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:1, Redundant)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I already have a protein gel that stops bleedin (Score:4, Interesting)
There's a small summary and a nice picture at http://www.microscopyu.com/galleries/smz1500/spid
protein gel (Score:3, Funny)
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Will your protein gel stop bleeding? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes, but have you ever squirted it into any gaping holes to see if the bleeding would stop?
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Re:Will your protein gel stop bleeding? (Score:5, Funny)
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Finally... (Score:4, Funny)
as a hemophiliac (Score:5, Insightful)
Now if I could just rub it on the skin to stop joint and muscle bleeds... wow... a gift from heaven?
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I'm afraid things aren't looking up for you.
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Re:as a hemophiliac (Score:5, Insightful)
Consider an electric razor...
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I'd be weary of anything that changes my body permanently, aesthically. (Plus I often wondered if beard hair stops facial skin from creasing.... it's hard to explain...)
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I looked up laser hair removal. A dermatologist doesn't necessarily recommend it for all men, because shaving exfoliates the skin daily (or however much you do it), making you age slightly less. Of course, you could exfoliate the skin another way..... (but then that becomes a routine that can be quickly forgotten).
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I am not quite sure how it works but I was curious because I used one successfully on a fairly major leg wound -- and it worked like a charm. It hurt like hell but it DID stop the bleeding, eventually.
(sidenote: I was in a pinch and didn't have other options at my disposal)
Re:as a hemophiliac (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not going for a sob story, i've long ago made peace with my situation and the lovely hep C that was given to me by Bayer when they were so kind as to make 'the newest, latest and greatest' product back in '88 or so that eliminated long stays in the hospital while bags of plasma were injected. Instead, you just mixed up a batch of freeze dried factor IIX that came from *dubious* sources.
Sorry to get off topic there... I havn't made peace with Bayer for that.
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Almost all those orginization were started in that fashion.
I had always the hemophilia was rarer then that, so at least I learned something.
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that came from *dubious* sources.
Who is not "dubious"? Church-going Catholics? Mormons? Televangelists? Married businessmen? Prisoners in solitary confinement?
Sorry to get off topic there... I havn't made peace with Bayer for that.
Were they sloppy, or were good tests available already? AFAIK, the blood supply only started getting tested in the 1990's, and even then there has been a problem with a window period.
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C'mon, you were all thinking it, somebody had to say it!
how I stop the bleeding in a deep wound (Score:2)
I once stood up from a chair into the corner of an open cabinet door. I could feel the blood pooling on my forehead, so I went to a nearby mirror. "That's going to leave a nice scar." I put some DMSO on a cotton pad (organic, because cotton crops get a lot of pesticides...) and applied it to my forehead. It burned a bit, but this
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Re:as a hemophiliac (Score:5, Funny)
Most people use the razor on their faces.
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I sympathize with you and your problem, and I hope this scientific advance really benefits you.
But there's only one thing I don't underestand: Why do you shave your ass?
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Protein Gel? (Score:2, Redundant)
Better than the alternative (Score:1)
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You need to apply a tourniquet to your heart.
Macular Degeneration? (Score:2)
And as I read elsewhere last night - don't invest in the gauze bandage industry now.
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unfortunately, that drug will only work on the "wet" macular degeneration, which only makes up about 10-15% of the cases.
the more common "dry" form currently doesn't really have a treatment at present.
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But... (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this mean it will make a way for blood to flow in an artery? Or does it just get in the way?
Does it make room for healing cells? TFA says it doesn't interfere, but does it get out of the way when the body starts to heal?
Could something be added to 'nourish' the or promote more healing cells?
Does it promote healing or just act like a mega-bandage?
Don't get me wrong, I think it'd be great to throw this stuff in a first aid kit so you could just glop it on if you get a gash while out hiking or hunting. They could be the first real 'med-packs' like in them 'video games'.
Blood to jello (Score:2)
Re:But... (Score:5, Informative)
The proteins they use are structurally very similar to natural silk, which is composed of proteins arranged primarily in a beta-sheet conformation. This conformation lines up strands of amino acids in a rough plane and cross-links them, usually with hydrogen bonds, but sometimes with ionic attractions or hydrophobic interactions.
The use of spider silk for clotting wounds has been known since ancient times; coagulation basically requires the onsite formation of a sticky, fibrous protein mess, and spider silk is almost completely sticky, fibrous protein (and unlike many similar foreign substances, doesn't provoke a dangerous immune reaction). This protein gel is basically the same sort of thing, but with the neat added trick that the cross-links are the result of ionic interactions, so that you could have an anhydrous powder of this stuff that you sprinkle onto a wound, and when it contacts electrolyte-rich bodily fluid (their paper on peptide nanofiber nerve scaffold notes it only requires normal physiological concentrations of salt, like those in saline or spinal fluid- from the news article, that's not especially clear), it turns to a fibrous gel.
As far as whether it promotes healing, interestingly enough, clotting itself promotes healing- the clot itself stimulates the cells in charge of repair- really, the sooner a stable clot is formed, the sooner your own cells can start fixing the damage. In the neural scaffold paper, the group also points out that, being composed of just the same amino acids ubiquitous in the body, the scaffold can be safely broken down to amino acids and then metabolized or excreted; I would imagine the same would be possible for the clotting gel when it is no longer needed.
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Sounds like the HemCon bandage (Score:5, Insightful)
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Battlefield use even more exciting (Score:5, Informative)
See... (Score:1)
Btw, the doctor's last name (Azar) means "randomness"
Finally - I can storm the castle!! (Score:2)
Step 2: Storm the castle.
Step 3:
Gaping wounds (Score:1)
Guess all is fair in love and wa^H^Hscience.
M.
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oh wait, you thought you were making some point in a clever way.
You didn't
Re:Gaping wounds (Score:5, Funny)
In the study, they only used animals with emotional problems who would cut themselves. They would watch the animals, and after the animal would cut themselves, they'd apply the protein gel. While they were studying the healing of the wound, another team of scientists who are conducting experimental depression therapy would treat the animals to stop them from cutting themselves any more. Both humans and animals benefit!
Also, I have it on good authority that rabbits actually enjoy having mascara smearing into their eyes, and were quite upset when they discovered certain humans were trying to stop the practice.
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Superglue? (Score:1)
Here's an interesting thought (Score:2)
coat bullets with it (Score:5, Funny)
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Why is the protein gel bleeding? (Score:5, Funny)
So I think I'll wait for version 2.
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If so, I'll make a house out of it and sell it to Glen Danzig.
My wife could use this (Score:3, Funny)
The poor use of corporate buzz words. (Score:2, Funny)
Quick, leverage the synergy!
It's all become true... (Score:3, Interesting)
As they teach in medical school (Score:2, Funny)
Oh noes!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Some interesting nuggets of info (Score:4, Informative)
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/hemostasis.htm
Not much new information here, but it's nice to read things that come "straight from the horse's mouth", so to speak.
Of real consequence is the main researcher's lab website:
http://web.mit.edu/lms/www/ [mit.edu]
It is chock full of interesting research on self-assembling peptides, including what substances they've been trying, and the eternally-asked question, Can I run my laptop off of spinach? [mit.edu](They isolated the chloroplast/photosystem of spinach, and hope to use it for photovoltaic purposes).
As far as discussion, most of the application has been suggested in the field of delicate microsurgery. Why not band-aids for the masses? Most likely due to the cost. Aside from the financial barriers in bringing an idea to mass-market, especially in the medical field, imagine trying to keep the candidate liquid substance stable for storage, to be used at a moment's notice; if it self-assembles easily, then it can "gel up" just as easily, too. This is combined with the fact that there are already several fairly effective ways to stop the typical cuts-and-scrapes of a household, from regular band-aids and gauze to liquid bandages (which quickly seals off a wound and prevents bleeding, in about the same amount of time). The real application would be in situations where regular hemostasis measures cannot be used or are undesirable. Again, this goes back to microsurgery. In most surgery, hemostasis is achieved by either tying off the bleeding vessel with suture, cauterizing the end of the vessel with a Bovey (an electrical tool used for cutting and cauterizing) or a laser, or simply clamping the vessel with a hemostat. There are other methods, but those are the most common ones in routine surgery. Clamping the vessel is not practical in confined spaces (the hemostat takes up space), cautery can't be used in all situations, and you can't always tie off the bleeder. The self-assembling gel described would be a boon in those surgical situations, another "arrow in the quiver", so to speak. The aforementioned application in patients with hemophilia is also plausible, if less certain.
Sadly, the journal that they are publishing in, Nanomedicine [futuremedicine.com], is fairly brand new and not stocked by my local library yet. There have only been three issues of it so far (June 2006, August 2006, and October 2006) and the latest is not on their website yet. I would really like to read that article in full.
Healing (Score:4, Funny)
do not read this (Score:2)
Good for home mechanics (Score:2)
Remember this one (Score:2)
Who needs "nanogel"? I got a POTATO! Or maybe it's for people one Atkins: proteins over carbs.
Quick! (Score:2)
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Still won't fly.
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