IIT-M team develops sutures with nanofiber yarns
Context: The nanofiber yarn based suture developed by IIT Madras researchers
About:
- These are bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics or therapeutics at the site itself
- Nanofiber yarns is bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics and/or therapeutics at the site itself.
- The suture material uses nanofibers woven as yarn using certain specific techniques, and the strength can be varied depending on the target tissue (skin, muscle, cartilage).
- Each strand has a good tensile strength, besides degrading rapidly and mimics the collagen fibrils of body tissues.
- Several innovations globally in suture material have advanced infection control and achieved in some cases, better recovery among patients, even as other options such as staples, glues and strips have become available.
Nanofiber yarns
- They are thread-like structures formed by twisting together hundreds of nanofibers.
- The way the nanofibers mimicked the collagen fibril sparked the idea in a lab that primarily works on scaffold-based tissue engineering to create thread like structures by twisting nanofibers together using custom-made machinery.
- “Several experiments were done to prove its compatibility, mechanical strength, stem cell interaction, immune responses, and antibacterial property, and they were compatible with prescribed norms in surgical procedure,”.
- The team also loaded the fibers to deliver drugs at site, and found it might be more suitable for internal sutures and on soft tissues.
- The bio absorbability aspect makes sure that the sutures do not have to be removed.
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