# Handheld Wound Analyzer for in situ Healing

> **NIH NIH R01** · BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL · 2022 · $352,944

## Abstract

Abstract
Acute wounds by traumatic injuries such as traffic accidents and burns account for large casualties and
disabilities, posting a large burden of the public healthcare system. Just the Medicare spending on wound
care in the US alone totals ~100 billion dollars annually. These injuries are highly patient-specific and
usually present complex clinical challenges for treatment, including extensive soft tissue loss, full-thickness
burns, hemorrhage, contamination, and tissue hypoxia, making the healing extremely challenging
especially for large-area and deep traumas. In particular, with disrupted microcirculation and thus
insufficient oxygen supply, wound healing can be severely impaired under hypoxia, and thus prolong or
even bias the healing process. Primary operation is the first line of treatment and key determinants of
recovery prognosis and survivability. However, current strategies using dry fluffed gauze and crepe
bandages for initial and post-operative wound management are non-differential to the patients’ specific
wound conditions, and are often insufficient to overcome these challenging healing processes. These non-
differential approaches also require secondary debridement of the wound, increase the risk of infection, and
increase the cost and time required for additional reconstructive surgery and depend on donor tissues.
Here, we propose a paradigm-shifting clinical approach that promotes wound closure and recovery by in
situ analysis of the wound topographic and oxygenation information, instant data analysis, and subsequent
automated application of programmed oxygen-generating biomaterials, which can rapidly fill the defect site
in a spatially and temporally controllable manner to heal the wound in a patient-specific manner. To achieve
this aim, we will integrate the cutting-edge bioprinting and photoacoustic imaging technologies to develop a
handheld bioanalysis-bioprinting hybrid smart applicator. This approach will be of significant clinical benefit
in advancing the existing wound dressing technologies to efficiently and effectively treat topical wounds
such as burn and blast injuries in situ.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10355493
- **Project number:** 5R01GM134036-03
- **Recipient organization:** BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL
- **Principal Investigator:** Y. Shrike Zhang
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $352,944
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-05-01 → 2024-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10355493

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10355493, Handheld Wound Analyzer for in situ Healing (5R01GM134036-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10355493. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*