SBIR Phase I: On-demand light-switchable adhesives

这项小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是减少由传统医用粘合剂敷料引起的医用粘合剂相关皮肤损伤（MARSI）的发生率。在所有年龄组和所有医疗机构中，MARSI发生率为7%，仅在美国每年就造成约150万人受伤。据估计，2012年，由于MARSI患者满意度得分低，向医院支付的款项被扣留了约8.5亿美元。胶带引起的皮肤损伤的平均治疗费用为88.50美元，比一卷医用胶带的平均费用高出125倍。该项目旨在创造可光切换的粘合敷料，这将显著降低MARSI，通过护士效率降低整体医疗成本，加速愈合，提高患者的生活质量，减少阿片类止痛药的使用。其他对光开关粘合剂表现出兴趣的行业包括塑料瓶回收、工业传感器和生产力传感器解决方案以及柔性电子制造。这个小企业创新研究（SBIR）第一阶段项目提出了一种新的粘合剂技术平台，在该平台上，粘合剂在应用和使用过程中的特性可以通过光开关与寿命结束/去除特性分离。该项目与其他制造可拆卸粘合剂的研究工作有很大的不同，后者的缺点包括成本高、难以或无法规模化、在医疗行业中使用的安全性不足，以及无法在短时间内产生刺激反应。所提出的材料满足所有粘合性能规格，光开关时间为2.5分钟。将探索几种交联剂混合物和乳液形态，以减少粘附切换时间，符合广泛使用所需的规格。将研究所需交联剂的成本和数量，以及过程控制的复杂性，以优化切换速度和制造成本。原型医用敷料将通过涂覆医用级面材制备，并将进行表征和测试以优化性能。最后，该产品将被送往ISO 10993测试，以证明该敷料在开放性伤口上的临床前安全性和有效性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to reduce the prevalence of medical adhesive related skin injuries (MARSI) caused by conventional medical adhesive dressings. MARSI occurs in 7% of all patients across all age groups and all healthcare settings, resulting in about 1.5 million injuries annually in United States alone. It is estimated that in 2012 about $850 million in payments to hospitals were withheld due to low patient satisfaction scores because of MARSI. The average tape-induced skin injury costs $88.50 to treat, which is 125x greater than the average cost of one roll of medical adhesive tape. This project aims to create photo-switchable adhesive dressings, which would significantly reduce MARSI, reducing overall healthcare costs through nurse efficiencies, accelerating healing, improving quality of life for patients, and decreasing use of opioid pain medications. Other industry sectors that have shown interest in photo-switchable adhesives include plastic bottle recycling, industrial sensors and productivity sensor solutions and flexible electronics manufacturing.This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project presents a novel adhesive technology platform where adhesive characteristics during application and use can be decoupled from end of life / removal characteristics through photo-switching. This project differs drastically from other research endeavors to create dismantlable adhesives, which have drawbacks including high costs, difficulty or inability to scale, insufficient safety to use in the medical industry, and inability to effect stimuli response within a short time. The proposed material meets all adhesive performance specifications and takes 2.5 minutes to photo-switch. Several crosslinker mixtures and emulsion morphologies will be explored to reduce adhesion switch time, in agreement with specifications needed for broad use. The cost and amounts of crosslinkers needed, along with process control complexity, will be studied to optimize for both switching speed and cost to manufacturing. Prototype medical dressings will be prepared by coating medical grade facestock and will be characterized and tested to optimize performance. Finally, the product will be sent for ISO 10993 tests to prove the pre-clinical safety and efficacy of the dressings on an open wound.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.