Online Desk: An eco-friendly wound dressing material using banana fibres has been developed by Indian scientists.

India has an abundance of banana pseudo stems which are discarded after harvest. Scientists at the Institute of Advanced Study in Science and Technology (IASST), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science and Technology, have transformed banana pseudo stems, which are often considered agricultural waste, into an eco-friendly wound dressing material.

Led by Prof. Devasish Chowdhury and Prof. (Retd) Rajlakshmi Devi, the research team has ingeniously combined the banana fibres with biopolymers like chitosan and guar gum to create a multifunctional patch with excellent mechanical strength and antioxidant properties, the Science and Technology Ministry said recently.

Taking it a step further, the researchers loaded the patch with an extract from the Vitex negundo L. plant, demonstrating the capabilities of plant extract-loaded banana fibre-biopolymer composite patch in vitro drug release and as antibacterial agents.

All the materials used in creating this innovative dressing material are natural and locally available, making the manufacturing process simple, cost-effective, and non-toxic.

“This investigation opens the door to a new era in wound healing, offering a low-cost, reliable, and environmentally friendly alternative that holds significant potential in biomedical research,” said Prof. Chowdhury. The research has recently been published in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules by Elsevier.