Bandages That Can Turn Off Genes Encourages Wound Healing

MTorrice writes "Medical researchers think specially tailored RNA sequences could kill tumor cells or encourage wound healing by turning off genes in patients' cells. Now researchers have developed a nanocoating for bandages or other medical materials that could deliver these fragile gene-silencing RNAs right where they're needed. The team hopes to produce a bandage that shuts down genes standing in the way of healing in chronic wounds."

Re:

[nospam007]

" "Doctors put drugs of which they know little into bodies of which they know less for diseases of which they know nothing at all." --Voltaire

                    "The role of the doctor is to amuse the patient whilst nature takes its course".--Voltaire again"

That works only for the malade imaginaire.

Leg fell off

[jamesh]

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

Re:Leg fell off

[ras]

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

No.

But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 [abc.net.au] (click on Transcript):

Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

Re:

[Dcnjoe60]

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

No.

But if you are under the age of 6, not wrapping a finger in a bandage means it will probably grow back. From www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/4632692 [abc.net.au] (click on Transcript):

Dany Adams: It's interesting, in humans if you were six years old and you cut the tip of your finger off it would grow back, as long as the doctors do not do the normal thing, which is to pull some skin and cover the wound to prevent infection, which is a very good thing to do, but if you don't do that and you allow it to stay open, it will in fact regenerate if you are six years old.

That's assuming the open wound doesn't become septic and you die from the infection, of course.

Re:

[sjames]

We have ways of preventing the infection.

Re:

[Dcnjoe60]

We have ways of preventing the infection.

Yes, we do. First, one of the steps being that you wrap the finger in a bandage to keep bacteria away from it.

Re:

[sjames]

Which is fine as long as the bone isn't trimmed and the wound closed with stitches as is normally done.

Wec also have antibiotic ointments.

Re:

[Vreejack]

Matthew Hagee says that praying for healing in Jesus' name always cures everything. Except a case of the stupids.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hagee-healing-jesus-name-works-every-time [rightwingwatch.org]

Re:

[jamesh]

Matthew Hagee says that praying for healing in Jesus' name always cures everything. Except a case of the stupids.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/hagee-healing-jesus-name-works-every-time [rightwingwatch.org]

If prayer isn't curing stupidity then you obviously aren't praying hard enough, or praying to the wrong god(s).

Re:

[VortexCortex]

I wonder if it can cure a nasty case of "leg fell off"?

Just glue the pieces together. Duh. It's not like you have to take them apart, you can just buy mor-- wait, wrong story, thought this tab was the Lego Xwing story.

Nanotech + engeneering

[chaos_technique]

What could possibly go wrong?

Grey goo? I Am Legend (Will Smith edition)?

Re:

[chaos_technique]

Twas actually a neologism splicing "engineering" and "gene". But it failed miserably, obviously.

That would be a Godsend

[hardburlyboogerman]

For Type 1 diabetics,like myself.We are plagued by non-healing chronic open wounds that set up into gangrene.I lost my right foot to such a wound that started as a blister

Re:

[RabidReindeer]

And the inability to appropriately use the space bar?

What? YOU don't operate the spacebar with your right foot?

Just because you're one of those morally-questionable left-footed people doesn't give you the right to be an insensitive clod!

Re:

[hardburlyboogerman]

I got diabetes after getting sucker punched by a psych patient who I stopped from killing a nurse.Thanks to that Jackass,I have no pancreas to make insulin.If it isa any consolation,he got himself killed not a month later.At least I'm still alive.

What's being 'silenced' here?

[waterbear]

Obviously one crucial element in the safety/efficacy of anything like this is the identity of the gene/protein involved:-- what exactly is being 'silenced' here and taken away from the wound-healing process?

Whatever, it's not mentioned in either the /. summary or either of the links referred to. So there's no real clue in the story, or in the links, about whether the application of this delivery technique is likely to be beneficial or the reverse.

Informative reportage?

Re:What's being 'silenced' here?

[TrashGod]

The idea is to down-regulate the production of protein(s) that induce cellular senescence in chronic wounds, for example [nature.com]. The short interfering RNA [wikipedia.org] molecules are fragile. The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

Re:

[RabidReindeer]

The idea is to down-regulate the production of protein(s) that induce cellular senescence in chronic wounds, for example [nature.com]. The short interfering RNA [wikipedia.org] molecules are fragile. The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

An even better system would also deal with the fallout from flesh-eating bacteria!

Re:

[waterbear]

TrashGod wrote:
> The article is touting a potentially more effective delivery system (gun), rather than a particular fragment (bullet).

Yes, that looks like a fair assessment. But the story as posted and linked is still essentially incomplete, because it doesn't mention what useful thing they propose to deliver. There has to be some beneficial payload in order to make this delivery system any use at all, assuming of course that it works as a delivery system.

The possible example of a 'payload' that you men

So...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I thought chronic, poorly-healing wounds were due to poor blood flow. Diabetes wrecks small blood vessels like capillaries, or unconscious people getting bedsores at pressure points.

This is spectacular.

[bmo]

Foot ulcers in diabetics and bed sores in the elderly are really hard to deal with. Even when blood sugar is under control, these things take a long time to heal. You don't ever want one to happen to you.

Slapping a specially treated bandage on a wound can *genetically* encourage healing? This is tantamount to finding out that you can cure scurvy with vitamin C to the affected people.

--
BMO

Amazing

[carrier lost]

I thought of this image [botaday.com] a couple of days ago, finished it last night.

This seems to happen every few weeks: I draw something that relates in some weird way to some current event I had no previous idea of.

I've tagged these images as "psychic [botaday.com]", for want of a better term.

Anyway, I apologize for hijacking the conversation - couldn't help myself. As you were.

Re:This is a phenomenally ignorant respose.

[conspirator23]

Congratulatons, you have managed to parlay your irrational fear of GMO into an irrational fear of entirely unrelated technologies. There's no gene splicing going on here. The RNA material they are embedding into the bandage are not genes, are not being spliced into living cells, and will not replicate. They are basically custom marching orders being sent to the existing genes, temporarily telling certain ones to shut the hell up for the duration of time that the RNA persists in the immediate area. The banda