This gel can make you stop bleeding instantly

Forget stitches — there's a better way to close wounds. In this talk, TED Fellow Joe Landolina talks about his invention — a medical gel that can instantly stop traumatic bleeding without the need to apply pressure. (Contains medical images.)

I want you guys to imagine
that you're a soldier

running through the battlefield.

Now, you're shot in the leg with a bullet,

which severs your femoral artery.

Now, this bleed is extremely traumatic

and can kill you in less
than three minutes.

Unfortunately, by the time that a medic

actually gets to you,

what the medic has on his or her belt

can take five minutes or more,

with the application of pressure,
to stop that type of bleed.

Now, this problem is
not only a huge problem

for the military, but it's
also a huge problem

that's epidemic throughout
the entire medical field,

which is how do we actually look at wounds

and how do we stop them quickly

in a way that can work with the body?

So now, what I've been working
on for the last four years

is to develop smart biomaterials,

which are actually materials that will work

with the body, helping it to heal

and helping it to allow the
wounds to heal normally.

So now, before we do this, we
have to take a much closer look

at actually how does the body work.

So now, everybody here knows

that the body is made up of cells.

So the cell is the most basic unit of life.

But not many people know what else.

But it actually turns out that your cells

sit in this mesh of complicated fibers,

proteins and sugars

known as the extracellular matrix.

So now, the ECM

is actually this mesh that
holds the cells in place,

provides structure for your tissues,

but it also gives the cells a home.

It allows them to feel what they're doing,

where they are, and tells them

how to act and how to behave.

And it actually turns out that
the extracellular matrix

is different from every
single part of the body.

So the ECM in my skin

is different than the ECM in my liver,

and the ECM in different
parts of the same organ

actually vary, so it's very difficult

to be able to have a product

that will react to the
local extracellular matrix,

which is exactly what we're trying to do.

So now, for example,
think of the rainforest.

You have the canopy,
you have the understory,

and you have the forest floor.

Now, all of these parts of the forest

are made up of different plants,

and different animals call them home.

So just like that, the extracellular matrix

is incredibly diverse in three dimensions.

On top of that, the extracellular matrix

is responsible for all wound healing,

so if you imagine cutting the body,

you actually have to rebuild

this very complex ECM

in order to get it to form again,

and a scar, in fact, is actually

poorly formed extracellular matrix.

So now, behind me is an animation

of the extracellular matrix.

So as you see, your cells sit
in this complicated mesh

and as you move throughout the tissue,

the extracellular matrix changes.

So now every other piece
of technology on the market

can only manage a two-
dimensional approximation

of the extracellular matrix,

which means that it doesn't fit in

with the tissue itself.

So when I was a freshman at NYU,

what I discovered was
you could actually take

small pieces of plant-derived polymers

and reassemble them onto the wound.

So if you have a bleeding
wound like the one behind me,

you can actually put
our material onto this,

and just like Lego blocks,

it'll reassemble into the local tissue.

So that means if you put it onto liver,

it turns into something
that looks like liver,

and if you put it onto skin,

it turns into something
that looks just like skin.

So when you put the gel on,

it actually reassembles
into this local tissue.

So now, this has a whole
bunch of applications,

but basically the idea is,
wherever you put this product,

you're able to reassemble
into it immediately.

Now, this is a simulated arterial bleed —

blood warning —

at twice human artery pressure.

So now, this type of bleed
is incredibly traumatic,

and like I said before,
would actually take

five minutes or more with pressure

to be able to stop.

Now, in the time that it takes
me to introduce the bleed itself,

our material is able to stop that bleed,

and it's because it actually
goes on and works

with the body to heal,

so it reassembles into this piece of meat,

and then the blood actually recognizes

that that's happening,
and produces fibrin,

producing a very fast clot in less than 10 seconds.

So now this technology — Thank you.

(Applause)

So now this technology, by January,
will be in the hands of veterinarians,

and we're working very diligently to
try to get it into the hands of doctors,

hopefully within the next year.

But really, once again, I
want you guys to imagine

that you are a soldier running
through a battlefield.

Now, you get hit in the leg with a bullet,

and instead of bleeding
out in three minutes,

you pull a small pack
of gel out of your belt,

and with the press of a button,

you're able to stop your own bleed

and you're on your way to recovery.

Thank you very much.

(Applause)