The female doctor created hemostatic material from fish scales

Detecting large amounts of collagen in fish scales, Dr. Nguyen Thuy Chinh sought to create new biomedical materials that help regenerate tissue and heal wounds.

Dr. Nguyen Thuy Chinh at the laboratory.(Photo: NX).

Fish scales are often the waste and are not valuable during fish processing, however, Dr. Nguyen Thuy Chinh (33 years old), principal researcher of Tropical Technology Institute, Academy of Science and Technology Vietnam discovered and sought to extract collagen from here .

The freshwater carp scales selected by the researcher contain type I collagen and 18 different beneficial amino acids, which have many advantages over collagen from mammals. In particular, this collagen is highly safe (no risk of disease from mammals), does not contain fat and is easily absorbed into the human body."This is a potential biological material in the application of biomedical materials that can regenerate tissue and heal wounds," said Dr. Chinh.

Collagen extracted from fish scales has many advantages compared to mammals.

Initial research results show that collagen from fish scales carries allopurinol to help guide the application of the treatment of reducing uric acid in the blood, the causative agent of gout. In addition, natural collagen fibers from fish scales can be combined with active substances Rb1, yellow tea tea polyphenols to be used as hemostatic materials and wound treatment.

"At present, in the world, collagen materials from micro-fibers capable of hemostasis are widely used, but the price is still high compared to Vietnam. So I want Vietnam to be able to make collagen materials from scales. fish also stop bleeding but reasonable price, " Chinh said. The team is researching deeply on the ability to treat wounds and tissue regeneration in the human body from fish scales collagen and has a patent registration in the process of substantive examination at the National Office of Intellectual Property.

With this research result and contributions to science, in 2019, she is one of two young scientists to receive the Golden Globe Award in the field of new material technology.

Born and raised in Ha Nam province, which had a love for science since high school, Chinh decided to pursue her passion, became a student in the Department of Chemistry, Hanoi National University of Education, then studied researchers at the institute. There are times when standing working with a molten mixer at 180 degrees Celsius in the hot summer weather to fabricate material samples, or times when the material is dehumidified, changing the properties due to hot, humid environments, Having to do it again and again doesn't make her feel discouraged."I'm still happy to be doing the right job with passion," said Dr. Chinh.

The results of her efforts are 31 ISI international articles, 3 articles published in the Scopus catalog, 69 domestic articles and the head of a National Science and Technology Development Fund project. (NAFOSTED).

Dr. Chinh said, on the basis of separating collagen fibers from denatured fish scales and natural active ingredients, she will focus on making new biomedical materials which will soon be put into application as hemostatic materials and wound treatment.