Continuous monitoring of wound healing with a novel four-in-one smart wound patch

Real-time monitoring of wounds is critical to facilitate timely and effective management of chronic wounds. The traditional wound dressings fail to indicate the infection status of wounds due to the lack of timely monitoring of the wound site. A smart wound patch that integrates electronic circuits on a flexible substrate can overcome this challenge through real-time wound-monitoring, infection diagnosis, and on-demand therapy. Here, we report a four-in-one intelligent wound patch that will provide in-situ monitoring of the pH and three key biochemicals present at the wound site, namely, uric acid and two cytokines. Chronic non-healing wounds have shown elevated levels of pH and the mentioned biomolecules, which lower as the wound heals. Our smart wound patch will allow quantitative assessments of wound healing status and initiate on-demand treatment. To realize the smart wound patch, we are developing a low-cost screen-printed electrochemical sensor that is composed of four working electrodes (for detecting pH, uric acid, and two cytokines), one common counter electrode, and one common reference electrode. The working electrodes will be modified with coatings for selective detection of pH, uric acid, and two cytokines. The integrated biosensor is designed on a medical gauge and hence is oxygen permeable, maintains a moisturized environment, and covers the wound area with no discomfort or irritation. Future endeavors include integrating an intelligent and regulated drug delivery system with our wound patch that will monitor the wound status and release drugs on-demand to assist the healing process. This research holds great promise in wound management and treatment, through continuous monitoring of wound site and release of drugs accordingly.