Issue 36, 2013

Designing electrospun nanofiber mats to promote wound healing – a review

Abstract

Current strategies to treat chronic wounds offer limited relief to the 7.75 million patients who suffer from burns or chronic skin ulcers. Thus, as long as chronic wounds remain a global healthcare problem, the development of alternate treatments remain desperately needed. This review explores the recent strategies employed to tailor electrospun nanofiber mats towards accelerating the wound healing process. Porous nanofiber mats readily produced by the electrospinning process offer a promising solution to the management of wounds. The matrix chemistry, surface functionality, and mat degradation rate all can be fine-tuned to govern the interactions that occur at the materials–biology interface. In this review, first we briefly discuss the wound healing process and then highlight recent advances in drug release, biologics encapsulation, and antibacterial activity that have been demonstrated via electrospinning. While this versatile biomaterial has shown much progress, commercializing nanofiber mats that fully address the needs of an individual patient remains an ambitious challenge.

Graphical abstract: Designing electrospun nanofiber mats to promote wound healing – a review

Article information

Article type
Application
Submitted
04 Jun 2013
Accepted
30 Jul 2013
First published
31 Jul 2013

J. Mater. Chem. B, 2013,1, 4531-4541

Designing electrospun nanofiber mats to promote wound healing – a review

K. A. Rieger, N. P. Birch and J. D. Schiffman, J. Mater. Chem. B, 2013, 1, 4531 DOI: 10.1039/C3TB20795A

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