Advanced Wound Dressing Material Based on Seaweed Agar can Treat Diabetic Wounds and Manage Chronic ones at Competitive Cost

Source: PIB

What is the News?

Indian Scientist from IIT Kanpur has developed an advanced wound dressing Material based on Seaweed Agar.

About Advanced Wound Dressing Material:

• This material is a biodegradable, non-immunogenic wound dressing based on agarose. Agarose is a natural polymer derived from seaweed agar.
• The dressing material can be used for the treatment of infected diabetic wounds and patients suffering from chronic wounds. 
• The material was developed with the support of the Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme of the Department of Science & Technology.

About Advanced Manufacturing Technologies programme: 

• The Government has set a growth target for the manufacturing sector from 16% of GDP to reach 25% of GDP by 2025.
• In accordance with this objective, the Department of Science and Technology has initiated this program for developing Advanced Manufacturing Technologies in October 2015

Objectives of the Programme:

• Five thrust areas were selected for developing novel manufacturing technologies:
  • Nanomaterials & surfaces,
  • Robotics & automation
  • Precision manufacturing,
  • The manufacturing process of Pharmaceuticals & Biomanufacturing
  • Advanced forming & near net shape processing.
• Encourage R&D labs to move some of their activities from “discovery research” towards “industrially relevant R&D”.