A new antibody treatment that heals burns from the inside out is drawing closer to human trials following a funding boost.
University of South Australia researchers developed the antibody treatment in a bid to neutralise an upregulated protein, which has been found to prevent wounds healing.
Lead researcher Professor Allison Cowin said the protein impaired healing responsed by decreasing the ability of cells to proliferate and migrate into wounds.
She said the antibody treatment worked by binding to the protein preventing it from functioning normally.
“We’ve shown that if we apply the antibody to burns in different models that it improves healing responses,” Professor Cowin said.
Unlike traditional burn treatments, which have relied on topical approaches, the antibody could be given through a drip, enabling it to heal multiple wounds at once.
Animal trials have shown the antibody’s ability to treat partial thickness burns.
National Health and Medical Research Council this month granted the research more than $AU800,000 to examine the efficacy of the treatment on a range of burn severities, trial dosage quantities and humanise the therapy.
“We’re wanting see if this idea of ours – to deliver the antibody systemically – will heal multiple wounds at the same time, which in the case of a burn, a major burn, could be really life changing,” Professor Cowin, pictured below, said.
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