00:00 CU
Maggots
ECU
Maggots
CU
Tube with sterile maggots
Wide,
ext. University of Nottingham
CU
University of Nottingham sign
MS
– Prof. David Pritchard, looking at slides
Wide
– laboratory
CU
– researcher
CU
– researcher pouring liquid into Petri dish
MS
– researcher with equipment
CU
–researcher
CU
– equipment
CU
– researcher
Guide Voice: The appeal of maggots is generally
limited to the dedicated angler but it seems we should appreciate
them more because, for a number of years now, they have been used
by doctors in the NHS to heal some of the most intractable wounds
like diabetic ulcers.
At the University of Nottingham, a research team led by
Professor David Pritchard is working to understand the biological
factors behind the healing power of maggots and has just received
two years’ government funding to take their work further.
It was during the Napoleonic wars that battlefield surgeons
first observed that soldiers, whose wounds were infested with
maggots, were healing faster and with less related fever, than
those whose wounds were not infested.
00:36 SOT Professor David Pritchard, University of
Nottingham – “Maggots are actually, in the
wild, if I can use that phrase, introduced into the wounds as eggs
by flies feeding on the dead and decaying tissue. And those eggs
hatch into small larvae which we commonly know as maggots. And
those maggots tend to feed on the dead and decaying tissue, first.
And having achieved that effect of removing the dead and decaying
tissue from the wound, the wound then has a better chance of
healing because you’ve removed a detrimental piece of tissue
from that wound.”
01:09 MS
lab researcher walks to bench
MCU
researcher opens tub of maggots
CU
tub of maggots
CU
tube of sterile maggots
As
above
As
above, but above light box
Guide Voice: In order to eat the decaying
tissue, it appears that maggots secrete enzymes that help to break
down, then absorb dead flesh and promote healing among the
surrounding cells and it is how this healing action works that the
team is studying.
Specially-bred sterile maggots of the Greenbottle variety,
rather than the more common Bluebottle are reared for the NHS
because the Greenbottle confines itself to dead tissue so will not
go into living flesh, and it is these that are actually used in
dressings, sometimes in nylon bags.
01:40 SOT Professor Pritchard
– “They are bred specifically under sterile
conditions so that from the moment the egg is laid, that particular
egg is sterile. And the maggot that hatches from that egg is
consequently sterile. And if you think about it, you have to have
sterile maggots; you cannot introduce extra bacteria into a wound
by using non-sterile maggots, so it’s imperative that, for
NHS purposes, that those maggots are
specially-bred.”
02:07 Wide
– researchers in lab
CU
tube of sterile maggots
MS
– researcher looking at gel
CU
– gel in dish
MCU
– gel on light box
ECU
– gel on light box
Video
– Fibroblasts PLUS maggot secretions
Video
– Fibroblasts NO maggot secretions
Video
– both from above, side by side for comparison
MS
– researcher using pipette with gel
MS
– as above
CU
– pipette and gel
MS
– researcher using pipette with gel
ECU
– pipette and gel
Guide Voice: The team receive their maggots
from the same source as the NHS and by the time they reach the
University laboratory, they have already secreted fluid into the
container. By applying this fluid to specially-treated gels, the
impact of the enzymes is evident – it eats through the
surface, leaving clear areas amid the blue-dyed plate.
By contrasting the action of the fluid secreted by the maggots
on human fibroblasts, a key cell in the healing process, with
fibroblasts without enzymes, they discovered that the healing
process was considerably accelerated.
Using time-lapse photography the impact of the secreted enzymes
on the healing process is dramatically illustrated with the
fibroblast cells growing together much more quickly than those
without the maggot secretions. Further studies have enabled them to
identify two enzymes in particular which accelerate healing and
they are now looking at ways to either use them in active dressings
or create a synthetic version of the enzymes which could be used
clinically in wound dressings in the future.
03:06 SOT Professor Pritchard –
“We have a defined plan, we’ve been funded to
actually isolate these enzymes, these wound healing enzymes, in
sufficient quantities to incorporate into prototype dressings, to
be trialled in patients with wounds as a replacement to live maggot
therapy.”
03:22 CU
tube of sterile maggots
Guide Voice: The ultimate aim is to harness the
healing power of the maggots and make the maggots themselves
redundant!
03:31 Ends
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