Daily Dosage: Traumatic injuries get a bio-bandaid

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Why cope with the repercussions of a traumatic head injury, not to mention the egregious medical costs of long-term treatment, when you can pop on a brain band-aid and suffer nary a mark within weeks?

Sounds alright to me, and it’s an idea finally coming to fruition, thanks to a new military-funded project out of Clemson University this week. Darpa, the military’s wonky research agency, has been sponsoring out-there initiatives in bioengineering for years. They’ve sought everything from PTSD prevention vaccines to body part banks, which I’ve blogged about in the past.

Of course, sometimes the imaginations at Darpa, and other military agencies, are a little ahead of the actual science. This time, though, the military’s got new advents in bioengineering on their side. A lab study on rats showed the potential for brain lesions to renew and regenerate using an injected gel, which spurred stem cells inside the body to repair the injury. From lead researcher Ning Zhang:

“We have seen an increase in brain injuries due to combat, but our strategy can also potentially be applied to head injuries caused by car accidents, falls and gunshot wounds…[this] also represents one of very few in the traumatic brain injury field that attempts structural repair of the lesion cavity using a tissue-engineering approach.”

Right now, PTSD (often caused by traumatic head injuries), along with other war-related brain damage, is treated by means of management – counseling, medication and maybe a little meditation thrown in for good measure. But, as has been recently reported, management is not akin to cure. Which is why these bio-bandaids sound like a pretty good – and pretty timely – extreme health innovation.