A biomedical engineering team at Brown University recently developed a new smart wound dressing: a hydrogel material that can "sense" the presence of harmful bacteria in the wound and only release antibiotics when specific bacterial enzymes are detected, thus accelerating healing while significantly reducing unnecessary antibiotic use. Researchers found in newly published animal experiments and in vitro experiments that the material is better than an antibacterial hydrogel dressing that is currently widely used in clinical practice in clearing infection and promoting healing, and is expected to become a new strategy to deal with the global problem of antibiotic resistance.
According to reports, the core of this smart dressing is a hydrogel that can be directly covered on the wound surface, and is "loaded" with antibiotics inside. The hydrogel structure is composed of long-chain polymers and cross-linking agents of smaller molecules. The latter will degrade when encountering β-lactamase produced by specific bacteria, causing the overall structure of the hydrogel to collapse, thereby releasing the antibiotics that are tightly "sealed within". When such harmful bacteria are not present in the wound environment, the hydrogel remains stable and intact, and the drug does not leak, thereby avoiding interference and exposure to the healthy commensal flora on the skin.
Anita Shukla, the leader of the project and a professor at Brown University's School of Engineering, said that the current global antimicrobial resistance problem is serious, and how to use antibiotics more "smartly" is crucial. She pointed out that the design concept of this material is "on-demand drug delivery": only when bacteria that cause infection are actually present in the wound, the dressing will initiate drug release; in the absence of infection, the drug will always remain sealed, reducing the risk of overuse of antibiotics at the source.
In in vitro experiments, the research team found that the hydrogel was highly specific for beta-lactamases produced by common pathogenic bacteria. When harmful bacteria capable of producing this enzyme were present in the test environment, the hydrogel rapidly decomposed and released the antibiotic; when it contained only harmless bacteria that did not produce the enzyme, the hydrogel remained intact and long-term exposure did not induce significant development of resistance. The researchers emphasize that this "enzyme-sensitive" response mechanism helps ensure that drugs only intervene when really needed.
Research also shows that the material exhibits high stability in sealing drugs. In the absence of a trigger, the antibiotic barely leaks from the hydrogel, and the drug is released concentratedly only when beta-lactamase reaches levels high enough to disrupt the structure. Shukla said that this feature not only helps control the timing of drug administration, but is also expected to reduce the need for multiple dressing changes, providing convenience for clinical use.
In mouse experiments, the research team applied this smart hydrogel to mouse wounds with abrasion infections and completely cleared the bacterial infection with just one application. In comparison, an antibacterial dressing currently widely used clinically is not as good as the new material in terms of bacterial removal and wound healing speed. The study results show that this new dressing can both control local infection more effectively and help restore skin barrier function more quickly.
There is widespread concern among the scientific community that drug-resistant infections could be linked to nearly 10 million deaths per year by mid-century if steps are not taken to reduce antibiotic misuse. Studies have estimated that more than one million people worldwide die from antibiotic-resistant infections each year. Against this background, the "on-demand response" smart hydrogel proposed in this study provides a new technical path for balancing therapeutic effects and drug resistance prevention and control.
The authors of the paper wrote in the summary that this smart hydrogel, which is sensitive to bacterial enzymes, can quickly release antibiotics when pathogenic bacteria that produce beta-lactamase are detected, achieving "on-demand disinfecting" of infections while minimizing the exposure of healthy microorganisms and tissues in non-infectious states to antibiotics. Currently, the research team has applied for a patent for this material and is continuing to optimize the technology and promote its development towards future clinical application and commercialization.
This research result, titled "Bacterial enzyme-responsive hydrogels for triggered delivery of antibiotics to infected wounds," was published in the journal Science Advances in March 2026. The research was funded by the Dr. Ralph and Marian Falk Medical Research Foundation.