Amrita Center for Nanosciences and Molecular Medicine (ACNSMM), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham at Kochi, developed the first fully scalable process for making nano cloth and nano threads at rates up to several meters per minute. The process was patent filed (Indian patent 3131/CHE/2014 and US patent No. 14/751,069) and published in the prestigious Nano Letters Journal (Nano Lett. 2015 Aug 12;15(8):5420-6. doi: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b01815, J. Joseph et. al.). Currently, the group led by Dr. Deepthy Menon, Associate Professor, ACNS, Kochi, is applying the nano cloth for a drug eluting platform and the nano thread as a drug eluting suture. (ACS Appl. Mater.Interfaces, 2016, 8, 6925-6934,Smrithi Padmakumar et.al.). This is expected to be the first sufficiently strong drug suture to be produced.

Dr. Manitha Nair, Assistant Professor, ACNS, Kochi, and team inserted the nanofibrous yarn as a reinforcement into a porous gelatin-hydroxyapatite bone scaffold and found substantial increases in mechanical properties and regenerative strength (Patent filed 5919/CHE/2015, provisional). This work is accepted for publication in Tissue Engineering Part A.