Close to three percent of the world’s population struggles with diabetes. Skin wounds that result from poor blood circulation arising from diabetes often do not heal, causing pain, infection, and, at times, can lead to amputation of limbs. Now a group of scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Harvard Medical School, United States, and others in the U.S. and Japan, have developed a low-cost nanometer sized drug to treat such chronic wounds. Proteins called growth factors have been found to speed up the healing process of such wounds, but purifying the growth factor proteins is very expensive and they do not last long at the injured site. The scientists used genetic engineering to produce a “robotic” growth factor protein that responds to temperature – increasing the temperature causes dozens of these proteins to fold together into a nanoparticle – simplifying the protein purification and making it very inexpensive to produce. The discovery also enables the growth factor to be combined and remain at the wound or burn site. The drug has been patented, and has successfully increased healing rates in mice. The team hopes to proceed to human clinical trials soon. The article can be viewed online at the link below.