A 17-year-old invented an ingenious way to instantly stop bleeding

[Unity+]

 

Landolina is now the cofounder and CEO of Suneris, a biotech company that manufactures the gel. Suneris announced last week that it would begin to ship VetiGel to veterinarians later this summer. Humans won't be far behind.

When injected into a wound site, the gel can form a clot within 12 seconds and permanently heal the wound within minutes, Landolina says.

"The fastest piece of equipment we have measures every 12 seconds," Landolina tells Business Insider. "So we know that it happens in less than 12 seconds."

The science that makes this all possible is surprisingly basic.

Each batch of gel begins as algae, which is made up of tiny individual polymers. If you break those polymers down into even tinier pieces, "kind of like Lego blocks," Landolina says, you can put them into the gel and inject that gel into a wound site.

Once it hits the damaged tissue, whether it's open skin or a biopsied soft organ — livers, kidneys, spleens — the gel instantly forms a mesh-like structure.

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-17-year-old-invented-vetigel-stops-bleeding-instantly-2015-6

 

I think this is revolutionary. It will dramatically change how Healthcare is done.

[CharonY]

I am not sure about the precise properties but considering that there are other hemostatics I do not see it as revolutionary per se. Maybe it has some added benefits (ease of use maybe?) that would make it an improvement over existing products. The article itself is a bit light on the science to be certain.

[Unity+]

I am not sure about the precise properties but considering that there are other hemostatics I do not see it as revolutionary per se. Maybe it has some added benefits (ease of use maybe?) that would make it an improvement over existing products. The article itself is a bit light on the science to be certain.

Considering that a majority of hemostatics have many more side effects, while this you just rub on the wound, I don't see how it isn't revolutionary.

 

 

When our gel technology is used, three aspects of hemostasis are enhanced to quickly and effectively stop bleeding. Immediately after application, our gel stimulates the clotting process by physically holding pressure in the damaged blood vessel. The gel then rapidly activates the accumulation of platelets, which bind to the site of the injury to create a platelet mesh. Our gel completes hemostasis by accelerating the binding of the clotting protein, fibrin, to the platelet mesh, resulting in blood coagulation and a stable clot.

Through initiating and amplifying the body’s natural clotting mechanism, our gel is able to quickly form a strong clot and stop bleeding, even in severe wounds.

This was on their site.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Unity+

[CharonY]

Why do you think that the other products have more severe side effects? Metastudies indicate no negative effects on a variety of sealents and hemostatics (at least for polymer based ones).

 

Also it is very similar to claims from other polymers used to promote the coagulation cascade. Again, the description does not highlight uniqueness to me. I am not saying there isn't but from the tidbits so far I do not see it. Maybe it is faster? But then I would need clinically performance data as in vitro tests are for these types of reactions usually not very conclusive. From what I understand they are still in the pre-trial phase. Not surprisingly, they do not disclose actual relevant data at this point (which is normal procedure).

 

To me, revolutionary would require some unique and novel function. It seems to have both benefits of sealants and heomstatics, but again, detailed performance data would be required to see whether it is any better than what you can get. At least none of the functions are new by itself. On top of it there are a large range of hemostatics under trial (or just coming out of) so it certainly is not a product that exists in isolation. And some older ones have more clinical data to indicate utility (or lack thereof), which, from my understanding, is not available yet for this product.

From what I can see the most unique aspect is the age of the CEO.

 

To summarize, from the short sales pitches there is little in term of uniqueness. You cannot even claim that it has less side effects as those have not been tested yet. That would be the role of trials. A thing that is also lacking in the pitch is to separate them from their competitors. At least I would have expected a statement that it acts much faster than other polymers or something to that effect. In order to show impact, they would need to demonstrate the clinical utility, which, based on the article, has not been established yet.

 

Edit: note that the article itself even highlights another, similar product. Also, rubbing it into the wound does no good. It requires to be injected into the wound. Hemostatics that work on the surface and are part of trauma bandages (such as cellulose based systems) already exist. So if you think that part is revolutionary, then you are about 10 years late to the party (could be off, but by 2008 there was already a lot of data from already commercialized product, so quite some time before that I guess).

Edited June 24, 2015 by CharonY

[Unity+]

Edit: note that the article itself even highlights another, similar product. Also, rubbing it into the wound does no good. It requires to be injected into the wound. Hemostatics that work on the surface and are part of trauma bandages (such as cellulose based systems) already exist. So if you think that part is revolutionary, then you are about 10 years late to the party (could be off, but by 2008 there was already a lot of data from already commercialized product, so quite some time before that I guess).

I think the revolutionary part of the product comes from the speed and efficiency of the product. I'm not denying that there have been previous products that the intention of doing the same thing.

 

 

To summarize, from the short sales pitches there is little in term of uniqueness. You cannot even claim that it has less side effects as those have not been tested yet. That would be the role of trials. A thing that is also lacking in the pitch is to separate them from their competitors. At least I would have expected a statement that it acts much faster than other polymers or something to that effect. In order to show impact, they would need to demonstrate the clinical utility, which, based on the article, has not been established yet.

So be it, but we shall see soon.

 

 

To me, revolutionary would require some unique and novel function. It seems to have both benefits of sealants and heomstatics, but again, detailed performance data would be required to see whether it is any better than what you can get. At least none of the functions are new by itself. On top of it there are a large range of hemostatics under trial (or just coming out of) so it certainly is not a product that exists in isolation. And some older ones have more clinical data to indicate utility (or lack thereof), which, from my understanding, is not available yet for this product.

From what I can see the most unique aspect is the age of the CEO.

I'm not really concerned about someone's opinion on the novelty of the product, rather I am concerned with the benefits of the product itself and how it will save lives, as it claims.

 

 

Also it is very similar to claims from other polymers used to promote the coagulation cascade. Again, the description does not highlight uniqueness to me. I am not saying there isn't but from the tidbits so far I do not see it. Maybe it is faster? But then I would need clinically performance data as in vitro tests are for these types of reactions usually not very conclusive. From what I understand they are still in the pre-trial phase. Not surprisingly, they do not disclose actual relevant data at this point (which is normal procedure).

I am going to assume they have work to show for the product. If they don't, then we continue on.

 

 

Why do you think that the other products have more severe side effects? Metastudies indicate no negative effects on a variety of sealents and hemostatics (at least for polymer based ones).

http://reference.medscape.com/drugs/hemostatics

 

Here is information about hemostatics. Whether they do happen, the point is they can and have a likelyhood of occurring. Tell me if this reference is viable or not.

[CharonY]

I think I see the reason for the confusion on side effects. You have added in the list a few drugs that affect blood clotting in a very different (and sometimes global) way. Those may have side effects. However, those similar in function (i.e. polymer applied to wound to promote sealing and/or clotting) to the one in the article are generally known to be safe. And since the mechanism is very similar any side effects are likely also to happen to the one proposed.

So I guess we can agree that we are not talking about something new or revolutionary but a new application that may (or may not) show improvement over existing products.

The impact will have to be shown in future (as it may have yet unknown issues that make it less or not more effective than what we have today).

[cudlo1]

This will revolutionized the process of hemostasis. Thank you for sharing