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)