Healthcare is one of the most promising areas for flexible and printed electronics. For example, a bandage is flexible to begin with, but if you can create an electric current to stimulate the healing of a chronic wound, that would be a significant step, as it has been shown that an electric field can promote healing in chronic wounds.

There are challenges: for one, getting the science down is essential when it comes to healthcare approvals. Developing a cost-effective product is also at the top of the list.

Because this has the potential to be a huge step forward in treating wounds, researchers worldwide are working on possible solutions. One such research team is being led by North Carolina State University, where, in conjunction with Columbia University, Beth Israel Deaconess Center, and researchers from other universities and institutes, advances are being made on this technology. The project was funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and North Carolina State University

Amay Bandodkar, co-corresponding author of the work and an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University, noted that the high cost of care for chronic wounds is a serious issue.

“Chronic wounds are a major health problem that affects millions of individuals each year,” said Bandodkar, who along with Rajaram Kaveti, co-first author of the study and a post-doctoral researcher at NC State, are inventors on a patent application related to this work. “The cost for treating chronic wounds is exorbitantly high. It costs several thousands of dollars to treat one chronic wound in the US. We wanted to explore if our prior experience in wearables and biocompatible batteries could be adapted to develop low-cost treatments.”

These water-powered, electronics-free dressings (WPEDs) have printed electrodes on one side and a small, biocompatible printed battery on the other. The dressing is applied to a patient so that the electrodes come into contact with the wound. A drop of water is then applied to the battery, activating it. Once activated, the bandage, which is disposable, produces an electric field for several hours.

“That electric field is critical, because it’s well established that electric fields accelerate healing in chronic wounds,” said Kaveti.

Each of the partners is bringing their expertise to the project. North Carolina State developed the bandages, Columbia University conducted the animal experiments, and Beth Israel Deaconess Center provided clinical inputs. The research team also includes experts from the joint biomedical engineering program at NC State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Korea University, Georgia Tech, and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, who assisted in computer simulations.

Bandodkar reported that the recent findings have been promising. The researchers tested the dressings on diabetic mice, finding that the wounds healed approximately 30% faster than wounds that were treated with only occlusive dressings (same as the ones you find in your local store).

“We were excited to see that our hypothesis that electronics-free, low-cost dressings could provide accelerated healing comparable to treatments that rely on expensive biological agents,” said Bandodkar.

“This collaborative project shows that these lightweight bandages, which can provide electrical stimulation simply by adding water, healed wounds faster than the control, at a similar rate as bulkier and more expensive wound treatment,” said Sam Sia, co-corresponding author of the work and professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, when the initial paper was published.

Ultimately, this system will need to advance to clinical trials. However, the next step is to test the bandages on pigs.

“We would like to test our bandages in pigs because wound healing in pigs follows similar pathways when compared to humans,” Bandodkar noted.

The feedback has also been positive, as there is interest in commercializing the technology. 

“We are exploring licensing this technology for commercialization,” Bandodkar said. “We have been approached by patients as well as doctors who would like to try our bandages. We are looking for partners who can help in acquiring FDA regulatory approvals and commercialize the technology.”


The paper, “Water-powered, electronics-free dressings that electrically stimulate wounds for rapid wound closure,” is published in the open-access journal Science Advances. The paper’s co-authors include Henry Chen, an undergraduate in the joint biomedical engineering department at NC State and UNC; Bhavya Jain, Navya Mishra, Nivesh Sharma and Baha Erim Uzunoğlu, Ph.D. students at NC State; Maggie Jakus, Darragh Kennedy and Elizabeth Caso of Columbia; Aristidis Veves, Georgios Theocharidis and Brandon Sumpio of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center; Won Bae Han of Korea University and the Georgia Institute of Technology; Tae-Min Jang of Korea University; and Suk-Won Hwang of Korea University and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology.