Chitosan bandages were developed at the Oregon Medical Laser Center. These bandages have impressive abilities to stop bleeding. The technology was licensed to HemCon and they received very rapid FDA approval external use of the bandages. The bandages are now being used by U.S. soldiers in Afaganistan and Iraq.
Chitosan is made by deacetylating the chitin found in shrimp shells. The chitosan is freeze-dried to form bandages that adhere extremely well to wet surfaces.
My work with chitosan is directed towards understanding fundamental mechanisms of the bandage functionality. I use a variety of optical and mechanical tests to test various hypotheses.
2005P. Wu, L. Lucchesi, J. Guo, S. A. Prahl, K. Gregory, "Development of In Vitro Adhesion Test for Chitosan Bandages," Society for Biomaterials 30th Annual Meeting Transactions, (2005).