Researchers across Europe have been working on a new dressing that automatically releases antimicrobials in paediatric burn wounds if they become infected.

Dr Toby Jenkins, Head of Biophysical Chemistry Research at the University of Bath and one of the study's scholars, introduced the new nanobiotechnology at the University of Leicester, UK, last week. His presentation, called 'A smart wound dressing concept for detecting and treating infection in paediatric burn wounds' discussed the clinical framework for the dressing as well as why the focus is on children's burns.

Children with burn wounds are at an increased risk of infection and clinical signs are non-specific. Usually, in order to tell if infection is present, children have to be re-admitted to hospital for assessment, put under anaesthesia and their dressings removed, which may cancel out many of the benefits of keeping the dressing intact.

This new dressing will kill bacteria from within, releasing nanocapsules of antimicrobials and colour changing dye indicating an infection, reducing the need for the assessment under anaesthesia.

 'The dressing will be impregnated with nanocapsules just a few hundred nanometers in diameter, which will contain an antibiotic/antimicrobial and a dye that on release changes colour,' said Jenkins in an editorial for the Expert Review for Anti-Infective Therapies. 'Research is currently focused on stabilising the nanocapsules whilst retaining their sensitivity to bacterial virulence factors and investigating a range of methodologies for attachment into wound dressings or wound dressing components such as non-woven polypropylene.'

A prototype will be available for clinical trials and safety testing in the summer of 2012.

To see the University of Leicester press release, click here.

To read Jenkins' editorial in the Expert Review for Anti-Infective Therapies, click here.

Image: Burns unit, Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital, Afghanistan. Credit: isafmedia on Flickr.