An antimicrobial blue light prototype device controls infected wounds in a preclinical porcine model

Laisa Bonafim Negri; William Farinelli; Sandeep Korupolu; Ying Wang; Yara Mannaa; Hang Lee; Jie Hui; Pu-Ting Dong; Andrea Slate; Joshua Tam; R Rox Anderson; Seok-Hyun Andy Yun; Jeffrey A Gelfand

doi:10.1093/infdis/jiae548

An antimicrobial blue light prototype device controls infected wounds in a preclinical porcine model

J Infect Dis. 2024 Nov 13:jiae548. doi: 10.1093/infdis/jiae548. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Laisa Bonafim Negri^{1

2

3

4}, William Farinelli^{1

3}, Sandeep Korupolu^{1

3}, Ying Wang^{1

3}, Yara Mannaa^{1

2

3}, Hang Lee^{3

4}, Jie Hui^{1

3

4}, Pu-Ting Dong⁵, Andrea Slate⁶, Joshua Tam^{1

3

4}, R Rox Anderson^{1

3

4}, Seok-Hyun Andy Yun^{1

3

4}, Jeffrey A Gelfand^{1

2

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston, MA, USA.
² Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center, Division of Infectious Diseases, MGH, Boston, MA, USA.
³ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁴ Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
⁵ The ADA Forsyth Institute; Center for Comparative Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Division of Comparative Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.

PMID: 39535214
DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiae548

Abstract

We developed a translational prototype antimicrobial blue light (ABL) device for treating skin wounds with ABL. Partial-thickness surgical wounds were created in live swine, an animal whose skin is considered the most like human skin, then heavily contaminated and left untreated for 24 hours with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). ABL treatment stabilized and reduced MRSA infection by greater than four orders of magnitude (>99.99%; p<0.0001) compared with untreated wounds in the same animal, after only two daily treatments. These data support further development of such devices for controlling infection in skin wounds. ABL, with or without concomitant administration of negative pressure, antimicrobials, or photosensitizers, could play an important role in modern wound care by reducing the amount, duration, and cost of antibiotics needed, helping reduce AMR. No such device for treating human cutaneous wounds currently exists. This deserves further development and study.

Keywords: Staphylococcus aureus; Antimicrobial blue light; MRSA; antibiotic stewardship; antimicrobial resistance; phototherapy; wound infection; wound model.