Treatment of Open Wound Infections Using Drug-Impregnated Polymer Hydrogels: A Dual Approach

Abstract

The skin is the body’s largest organ and serves a variety of essential functional and aesthetic purposes. Wounds, burns, and other abrasions to the skin can have consequential effects on the rest of the body if not properly managed. Open wounds are often a breeding ground for bacterial infections and can pose a severe threat to individuals with compromised immune systems and other at-risk groups. Antibiotic- resistant bacteria, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), thrive in these polymicrobial environments and are often difficult to treat. In tandem, bottlenecks in the drug discovery pipeline lead to slow development of novel compounds and routes of administration. One such challenge is the inherent issue of solubility of antibiotic compounds. Otherwise promising drug candidates face challenges in administration in critical cases, such as open wounds, due to their poor aqueous solubility. These barriers highlight the need for unconventional approaches to drug discovery and the delivery of therapeutics. In collaboration with an Edmonton-based biotechnology company and other research groups at McMaster University, we performed a comparative analysis of two novel hydrogels loaded with antibiotics of interest to address the aforementioned challenges in treating infected wounds. Utilizing patented technology and an optimized excisional murine wound model, the two proposed routes of antibiotic administration show promise in delivering drugs with inherently low water solubility and offer several other advantages in the development of efficient drug delivery vehicles.