Create hydrogel from snake venom to stop bleeding in seconds

Uncontrolled blood loss is considered a major problem anywhere, from the battlefield to the operating room. While coagulation drugs can be used to prevent bleeding, its use is often hampered by other anticoagulant drugs. In this regard, scientists have studied and released a new type of hydrogel with snake venom, promising to stop bleeding in seconds.

Manufacture new blood coagulation drugs from snake venom

"It's interesting that you use something that can be lethal to make it something that can save lives," said Jeffrey Hartgerink, a chemist at Rice University. Specifically, Hartgerink and his colleagues developed a nanofiber hydrogel containing batroxobin , a venom found in two South American cobra species. The coagulation function of batroxobin was first discovered in 1936 and since then, it has been used as a therapy to treat thrombosis as well as hemostasis during surgery.

For a while, researchers from Rice University developed a type of injectable hydrogel, set up from peptide chains that mimic the natural process to heal natural tissue wounds. Baxtrobin used in this study does not originate from true snakes but is produced by genetically modified bacteria, then cleaned to eliminate other dangerous toxins.

Jeffrey Hartgerink (left) and Vivek Kumar are the two scientists leading the study .

By mixing their baxtrobin and nanofibers, putting the mixture into a syringe, the researchers found the new hydrogel and named it SB50 . Tests show that when the liquid is injected into the wound, the nanofibers combine to form a gel and stop the bleeding in just 6 seconds. A few minutes later, the scientists tried to poke the wound but did not see it open. Another major concern is that the new hydrogel is still effective in patients who have previously used anticoagulant heparin.

"Batroxobin is also an enzyme that functions similarly to thrombin, but its function is not blocked by heparin , " Hartgerink said. "This is really important because the surgical bleeding for patients taking heparin can be a serious problem. Using batroxobin allows us to fix this problem because it is immediately available. can cause blood clotting to begin, regardless of whether or not heparin exists. "

Batroxobin has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), although Rice University's new hydrogel has not yet been approved. The researchers expect that in a few years, the necessary tests will be performed before it is safe enough for clinical use.