"Using Bioactive Glass to Rapidly Stop Bleeding for Injuries in the Field"
Speaker: , Linda & Bipin Doshi Professor, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Date: October 2, 2024, noon-1 p.m.
Locations:
- ÀϾÅÆ·²è S&T, Innovation Lab Forum Room (lunch is provided for the first 50 attendees)
- MU NextGen Building, Atkins Seminar Room (lunch is provided for the first 50 attendees)
- Or join via Zoom
Description
"The conventional materials – gauze or one of the commercial hemostats – take 30 or 40 minutes to really cause a clot. With our material, it’s down to about four or five minutes."
Mark Towler, Ph.D.
Death from blood loss represents , resulting in more than 60,000 deaths in the U.S. and 1.9 million worldwide each year.
In this lecture, Dr. Towler will share his journey as an inventor developing patented technology to stop severe bleeding in the field. It’s a tantalum-based bioactive glass powder that can be applied to a wound to dramatically reduce blood clotting time, whether that’s in the back of an ambulance, in the ER, on the battlefield, or in the home.
The current commercial alternatives have significant drawbacks, causing inflammation or even severe burns on the skin. Dr. Towler’s cost-effective powder acts in two stages: soaking up the liquid parts of blood into the material’s pores and then releasing tantalum to accelerate clotting chemically. He’ll discuss the process of testing the material and readying it for the marketplace with industry partners.
Description (Expanded)
Hemorrhage is the most common cause of mortality during both surgery and combat. In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan it accounted for almost 50% of fatalities before evacuation. Commercial organic and inorganic hemostats are the current options for staunching blood flow, but have inherent drawbacks. Organic dressings such as cellulose retard bleeding by providing a suitable matrix for blood cell adhesion, but their acidic nature causes inflammation. Inorganic hemostats, usually based on kaolinite clays or zeo