Fizzy bubbles carry drugs deep into wounds

[saikat07]

Alka-Seltzer’s frothy fizz may hold the secret to stopping blood loss.

Jets of rushing bubbles can carry blood-clotting drugs deep into a wound and seal it shut, scientists report October 2 in Science Advances.

The work is the first to show bubble-powered devices doing something useful inside the body, says organic chemist Jan van Hest of Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. “What they’ve done is really clever because it has a biomedically relevant application — it can stop blood flow,” he says.

The bubble-propelled drugs could come in handy in a car accident, in postpartum hemorrhaging or even on the battlefield, says study coauthor Christian Kastrup of the University of British Colombia in Vancouver.