The researchers – Elisabeth Engel, Melba Navarro, Oscar Castaño, Miguel Angel Mateos and Soledad Pérez – are hoping that the public will choose to fund their Dermoglass project, which has been developed here and at the UPC, to the tune of €12000. The project is one of the first to be chosen by the UPC’s new SUMA crowdfunding initiative, which identifies projects and collaborates with Goteo to help get them funded.
Dermoglass is a special wound dressing developed to accelerate the regeneration of the skin in hard-to-heal skin ulcers, which are a major public health problem particularly for the elderly, bedridden and wheelchair-bound. A problem that sees 57,000-100,000 patients seeking help every day in Spain alone, skin ulcers result from various causes, ranging from diabetes to a simple lack of blood supply.
Other dermal dressings already on the market don’t tackle the problem of healing in the way that the group’s innovative technology does, by stimulating vascularization in the damaged tissue so that the ulcer heals more quickly. “The results obtained so far are encouraging, demonstrating a 80% reduction in the size of the wounds in just eight days of treatment,” says Elisabeth, junior group leader of the Biomaterials for Regenerative Therapies group and Assistant Professor at the UPC.
“The money we raise from crowdfunding will ensure that our dressing can proceed to preclinical testing to demonstrate its safety and efficacy,” she adds. “After that it could be only a matter of a year before it could be brought to market and eventually start to benefit the sufferers of skin ulcers, which are the most common chronic wounds in the over 65s.”
Catalan actor and musician Andreu Rifé, who played doctor Josep in the TV3/Antena3 series ‘Pulseras rojas’, lent his services for a video, which has been produced by IBEC’s Communications and Outreach Unit, that forms part of the group’s proposal and publicity for the project.
Visit http://goteo.org/project/dermoglass to find out more about the project, watch the video and make a donation.
