Scientists say new man-made materials equipped with sensors could turn bandages into a valuable tool for health care workers.

Simple bandages are easy to use, covering up the damaged skin and giving it time to heal. Scientists are now developing bandages with technology currently used in popular wearable devices, such as smart watches and fitness trackers. They have begun adding small sensors of all kinds to bandages and making them more sensitive. Scientists are also making new materials called hydrogels(水凝胶). Hydrogels resemble human skin. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found a way to combine these two technologies. They created a stretchy polymer（聚合物）with firmness similar to human soft tissue. The new combination product has titanium wires that lie in a zig-zag, or “z”-shaped design. The wires, connected to electronic sensors, stretch easily without breaking contact with the sensors.

Xuanhe Zhao, an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering, says the researchers put electronic devices, such as sensors, into the new material. They use a different device to put medicine in the damaged skin. The resulting product becomes a kind of “smart-wound dressing” --- one that can react to changes in the skin around it.

For example, Zhao says, if there is a sudden increase in temperature, the wound will send out a command. That is when “the controlled drug delivery system can deliver a specific drug to that specific location.” LED lights in the bandage can warn patients and doctors about changes in different areas. Medication quickly spreads across the bandage, through tiny passageways so that the wound heals quickly. Zhao tells us that he and his team are working hard and hope to get to clinical tests soon. It will be some time before these smart bandages reach hospitals or drug stores. But Zhao says “I firmly believe that eventually they will have a broad application.” In the future, such products might even contain a computer chip, which would give them more power to analyze what is needed.