Braided sutures composed of composite nanofibrous yarns

Challenge

Surgical sutures are used to facilitate wound closure of surgical -or trauma-induced wounds. Recently, there is growth in the development of suture materials based on new biomaterials to improve the healing process. These new suture materials should have additional capabilities such as the potential to deliver drugs and cells to facilitate and/or augment wound healing. Conventional fibrous materials of surgical sutures do not provide an optimal environment for their bio-functionalization. The development of nanofiber-containing surgical threads having both a structure mimicking an extracellular matrix and drug delivery system, therefore, is quite a challenge.

Technology

Surgical site infections (SSIs) have become an attentive issue nowadays due to the wide usage of the biomaterials. Even contamination of a wound or biomaterials based sutures with the microorganisms can ultimately prevent the healing of the tissue. Therefore, it is, for instance, necessary to produce sutures with antibacterial properties to prevent the formation of biofilms and the growth of bacteria during the healing procedure. Our sutures braided from composite nanofibrous yarns represent a novel approach and will be extremely valuable for the next development of functionalized products. The production of these sutures is based on three inventions. First, nanofibres are generated by a highly productive method of collectorless as well as needleless altering current (AC) electrospinning. Secondly, the plume of nanofibres produced by AC electrospinning is collected by the axially rotating and ballooning classic yarn, which we call the core yarn. This method of producing a massive nanofibrous envelope around the yarn core can be implemented with cores of a linear density ranging from tens up to thousands of dtex. Thirdly, nanofibrous composite yarns can be further processed by specially modified braiding machines to produce surgical sutures with unique added properties. Surgical sutures braided from composite nanofibrous yarns, with a conventional thread core for mechanical strength and a nanofibrous envelope for functionality, produced by this cascade of technologies have many advantages for next developments.

Commercial Opportunity

Co-devolpment partners out-licensing partners

Development Status

Analysis of surgical suture properties by preliminary mechanical and in vitro tests.

Patent Situation

WO2014094694 A1, WO2017108012 A1, WO2016192697 A3, WO 2019047990 A1

Further Reading

Valtera J. Kalous T. Pokorny P. Batka O. Bilek M. ChvojkaJ. Mikes P. Kuzelova Kostakova E. Zabka P. Ornstova J. Beran J. Stanishevsky A. & Lukas D. Fabrication of dual-functional composite yarns with a nanofibrous envelope using high throughput AC needleless and collectorless electrospinning, Scientific Reports, 9: 1801, 2019, doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-38557-z,

Lukas D. Pokorny P. Kostakova E. Sanetrnik F. et al. Effective AC needleless and collectorless electrospinning for yarn production, Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 16 (48), 26816-26822, 2014.