The importance of the rat study is that the synthetic polymer could one day help save people from losing too much blood, provided that the developed is passed as safe to use with people.
In controlled studies, when the substance was injected into the circulation of rats, the polymer stopped the animals’ bleeding after their femoral arteries were cut. Such instantaneous clotting has not been achieved before. Discussing this further, lead scientist Suzie Pun, a bioengineer at the University of Washington told The Verge: “We designed a polymer that we can inject into the bloodstream and that’s able to integrate in the forming of clots, and it stabilizes them.” She added: “I think this has real power to save people in the battlefield.”
With the rat study, the scientists derived the polymer, termed PolySTAT, from the same material that is used to make contact lenses. To this they added a peptide that binds fibrin (the fibrous protein involved in the formation of platelet plugs during blood clotting.) After making 3-millimeter cuts in the femoral arteries of 40 rats, the researchers treated half of the animals with the polymer solution. All of the untreated rats died, however all of the rats that received the polymer injection survived. This success paves the way for human trials in the near future.
The development to date has been reported to the journal Science Transitional Medicine. The research paper is titled “A synthetic fibrin cross-linking polymer for modulating clot properties and inducing hemostasis.”
