MADISON, Wis. – What if you could heal your wounds four times faster than normal with just a bandage?

That’s exactly what researchers at UW-Madison are trying to accomplish.

The bandage, developed by Professor Xudong Wang and researched by Dr. Angela Gibson, uses the body’s own electrical energy to speed the healing process.

It was first created about three years ago, and tests on mice showed strong results.

“When we tested it on wounded human skin that we’d grafted onto a mouse, the wound healed completely in seven days compared to the typical 30 days using a standard dressing,” Gibson said in a statement Tuesday.

The bandage uses a tiny generator, called a nanogenerator, to capture energy from natural movements like breathing.

That energy is used to create an electrical field around the wound.

Research has shown that electrical fields speed the healing process and that the body even creates its own electrical field around a wound.

Wang and Gibson expect these bandages to not cost much more than a regular dressing.

“We made improvements in the bandage between our original study and this one,” Wang said. “We’re very excited about the results in human skin.”

Gibson said the team will continue their research, helping the bandage to better harness energy at various sites on the human body.

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