DARPA Wants 'Fracture Putty' To Fix Broken Bones

Darpa is reaching out for proposals in the healthcare area…putty to provide assistance to soldiers in the battlefield. The putty needs to bond with the bone and degrade in the body over time. It needs to be able to adapt to biochemical signals as does real bone. Responses are due by July 29th, so if you are in the biotech, adhesives, etc. fields, this might be a good opportunity.

With many limbs being amputated, this could serve to help reconstruct the bone and possibly avoid some instances, and if nothing else, the rate of infection with this method could be less. The full press release (pdf) can be viewed here. BD

Darpa, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, wants help developing "fracture putty," a substance that it hopes will be able to make broken limbs functional again in a matter of hours. "DARPA seeks to develop a dynamic putty which, when packed in/around a compound bone fracture, provides full load-bearing capabilities within hours, creates an osteoconductive bone-like internal structure, and degrades over time to harmless resorbable by-products as normal bone regenerates," the agency said in its request for proposals (RFP) .If you have the right stuff, or if you think you can invent it, Darpa awaits your proposal.

DARPA Wants 'Fracture Putty' To Fix Broken Bones -- DARPA -- InformationWeek