Scientists Develop New Dressings for Wounds Using Live Maggots
Posted on October 10, 2006
An article from Live Science on MSNBC.com discusses a new wound dressing that using secretions from greenbottle blowfly larvae. The article says to think of its as "live maggots" without the "yuck" factor even though there is still a little "yuck" factor when you think about maggot secretions. Studies on live cells found the secretions are effective.
Instead of using live maggots, the scientists developed a new wound dressing impregnated with purified excretions and secretions from live greenbottle blowfly larvae.Live maggots have also proven to be effective in fighting wounds but the bug juice avoids having to use actual maggots.In addition to avoiding the "yuck" factor, using these dressings instead of live maggots helps assure a more controlled, predictable release of the larvae chemicals. The dressings are expected to have longer shelf lives than the maggots and prove easier to ship and less fragile.
The researchers tested their prototype dressings against layers of human and mouse cells grown on lab dishes, which were scratched to simulate wounding. They found the dressing markedly accelerated closure of the wounds.
Britland and his colleagues, including researchers from Bradford-based biotechnology company AGT Sciences, are ready to start clinical trials of their therapies. They report their findings in the Oct. 6 issue of the journal Biotechnology Progress.