In Massachusetts, researchers at MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering developed a hydrogel biomaterial, mostly made of water, mixed with gelatin proteins and inorganic silica nanoparticles that help speed up blood coagulation and clotting. This biomaterial is an improvement for current standard for patching blood vessels and could come in handy for emergency medical personnel attending to wound victims or in military settings to help wounded soldiers, increasing their chance of survival from shock and blood loss.
The material has been injected into ruptured blood vessels and tested on animals and no inflammatory side-effects occurred and no blood clots happened elsewhere in the body, giving hope that the material could be used in humans eventually. For now, researchers continue studying the physical mechanism by which the nanocomposite material interacts with blood to better understand how it works and see if they can further improve the biomaterial.