Using Bioactive Glass to Rapidly Stop Bleeding for Injuries in the Field
Speaker: Mark Towler, Ph.D., Linda & Bipin Doshi Professor, Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, Missouri University of Science and Technology
Date: October 2, 2024, noon-1 p.m.
Locations:
- Missouri S&T, Innovation Lab Forum Room (lunch is provided for the first 50 attendees)
- MU NextGen Building, Atkins Seminar Room (lunch is provided for the first 50 attendees)
- Or join via Zoom
Description
"The conventional materials – gauze or one of the commercial hemostats – take 30 or 40 minutes to really cause a clot. With our material, it’s down to about four or five minutes."
Mark Towler, Ph.D.
Death from blood loss represents a substantial global problem, resulting in more than 60,000 deaths in the U.S. and 1.9 million worldwide each year.
In this lecture, Dr. Towler will share his journey as an inventor developing patented technology to stop severe bleeding in the field. It’s a tantalum-based bioactive glass powder that can be applied to a wound to dramatically reduce blood clotting time, whether that’s in the back of an ambulance, in the ER, on the battlefield, or in the home.
The current commercial alternatives have significant drawbacks, causing inflammation or even severe burns on the skin. Dr. Towler’s cost-effective powder acts in two stages: soaking up the liquid parts of blood into the material’s pores and then releasing tantalum to accelerate clotting chemically. He’ll discuss the process of testing the material and readying it for the marketplace with industry partners.
Description (Expanded)
Hemorrhage is the most common cause of mortality during both surgery and combat. In the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan it accounted for almost 50% of fatalities before evacuation. Commercial organic and inorganic hemostats are the current options for staunching blood flow, but have inherent drawbacks. Organic dressings such as cellulose retard bleeding by providing a suitable matrix for blood cell adhesion, but their acidic nature causes inflammation. Inorganic hemostats, usually based on kaolinite clays or zeolites, are somewhat effective in arresting hemorrhage; their net negative surface charge activates the contact pathway of coagulation, and their structure facilitates the rapid absorption of water from the blood, but the exothermic setting reaction that they exhibit when interacting with blood causes endothelial injury. Their efficacy also depends on the coagulation function of the host.
Mesoporous bioactive glasses (MBGs) are distinct from the bioglasses used for orthopedic reconstruction as they possess ordered channel structures and high specific surface area. MBGs have been shown to react with blood without producing an exotherm but their potential for hemostasis has been retarded by both their pedestrian clotting ability and an absence of antimicrobial activity.
Dr. Towler reported on a patented series of tantalum-based mesoporous glass compositions of matter which have demonstrable potential as hemostats in a wide range of bleeding environments due to the dual physical and chemical clotting characteristics of these proprietary materials. In the lecture he will discuss the processing and characterization of these novel materials alongside their evaluation in a range of living systems and their recent licensing to a US based medical device company.
About the Speaker
Mark Towler was appointed Doshi Professor in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Missouri S&T in 2023. Prior to this, he was Professor (Strategic Hire) in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Toronto Metropolitan University with a cross-appointment in neighbouring St. Michael’s Hospital. He previously held faculty posts in Alfred University and the University of Limerick. He has a PhD (1997) in Biomaterials from Queen Mary College.
Dr. Towler has generated over $28M funding to sustain active research programs on devices for hard tissue applications, in-vitro diagnostics, bioglasses and biofilm inhibition, leading to the publication of 183 papers in the peer reviewed literature. He holds eight patents and is the co-founder of Crescent Bone Health, a private equity funded company which launched a diagnostic for fracture risk, Osentia, based on the exclusive licensing of four of those patents.
Dr. Towler is looking forward to his time in the USA where he intends to learn the language. Despite working quite hard at science, the Nobel Prize still eludes him. As a committed football player (we don’t call it soccer) he eagerly awaits his debut for England FC; it can’t be long now……
About the Discovery Series
The NextGen Precision Health Discovery Series provides learning opportunities for UM System faculty and staff across disciplines, the statewide community and our other partners to learn about the scope of precision health research and identify potential collaborative opportunities. The series consists of monthly lectures geared toward a broad multidisciplinary audience so all can participate and appreciate the spectrum of precision health efforts.
For questions about this event or any others in the Discovery Series, please reach out to Mackenzie Lynch.