Maggot Wound Therapy Without Maggots

A new wound dressing has been developed that could bring the benefits of maggot therapy to patients without putting live Greenbottle fly (blowfly) larvae into non-healing wounds.

A joint research project of researchers from Bradford University (UK) and Nottingham University (UK) found that maggots' excretions and secretions (ESs) could encourage regeneration of tissue and wound healing without the actual presence of the maggots. The researchers established the wound-healing capacity of the so-called "maggot juice” by applying extracts of the secretion to layers of cells that mimic skin. When they created artificial, circular wounds in the layers, the wounds healed fastest when exposed to the extracts.

The researchers suggest that protease enzymes in the juice enable repair cells to move more swiftly and freely within the wound site. Realizing that the ESs would have to be delivered in a controlled fashion, the researchers developed a new hydrogel dressing, which slowly releases maggot ESs. Too little would undermine the clinical objectives and too much could disrupt tissue regeneration, while suspending the enzymes in the gel allows quantities to be carefully controlled. The study was published in the October 2006 issue of the journal Biotechnology Progress.

"The present prototype hydrogel wound dressing could potentially be deployed as a device to deliver insect-derived active products to skin wounds in vivo to encourage tissue regeneration,” said lead author Dr. Stephen Britland, a lecturer in pharmacology at Bradford. "If you can take the active components out, the approach would be much more versatile.”

A tissue-regenerating dressing incorporating the enzymes is being developed commercially by AGT Sciences (Bradford, UK), a company spun out from the university, but it will be at least another three years before the dressing is ready to market. The researcher's next step, beginning in November 2006, is to scrutinize in detail how maggots heal wounds in real patients.



Related Links:
Bradford University
Nottingham University
AGT Sciences