Significance: Historically, honey has been regarded as a potent agent in bacterial inhibition and wound healing. An increased prevalence of antibiotic resistant pathogens spurred an initial resurgence in honey's clinical popularity, with it quickly finding a place in wound care and regenerative medicine. However, this renewed usage demanded a need for improved delivery and overall research of its bioactive properties. This review provides an overview of the antibacterial properties and clinical use of honey. Recent Advances: The past and present clinical use of honey is noted, focusing specifically on burns and ulcers, as these are the most common applications of the natural agent. While honey is often used without modification clinically, there are also commercially available products ranging from dressings to gels, which are discussed. Critical Issues: Despite these products growing in popularity, the need for improved delivery and a structure to support wound healing could improve the treatment method. Future Directions: Tissue engineering scaffolds can provide an alternative method of honey delivery with research focusing primarily on electrospun scaffolds, hydrogels, and cryogels. Current studies on these scaffolds are discussed with respect to their advantages and potential for future clinical work. Overall, this review provides a comprehensive overview of the properties of honey, its current use in wound healing, and the potential for future incorporation into tissue-engineered scaffolds to provide an innovative wound healing agent.

This Article describes a method that increases the chemical shift dispersion of signals in proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H NMR) spectra of peptides by the addition of salts to the sample. We demonstrate that the addition of potassium phosphate to aliquots of reactions of glycine peptides permits the measurement of their rate constants for hydrolysis by a 60 MHz benchtop instrument, which would otherwise be infeasible due to overlapping signals in the salt-free mixtures. The method is described in detail and validated by comparison to analysis on a 400 MHz spectrometer. The ability to use benchtop NMR spectroscopy to study reactions of simple peptides enables interested scientists at a broader array of institutionsnot just those institutions capable of affording high-field NMR instrumentsto participate in original research projects like those aimed at elucidating the chemistry that led to the origin of life on Earth.

The macroporous structure and high interconnectivity of cryogels supports fluid flow, cell mobility, and angiogenesis throughout the scaffold. Additionally, a pre-formed injectable cryogel allows the potential for minimally invasive treatment of bone nonunions that would normally require surgical intervention. Such a defect is due to compromised signaling pathways by biological or biomechanical disturbance during fracture healing. The addition of powdered platelet-rich plasma (PRP) introduces soluble factors normally found in the early inflammatory stages of bone healing, allowing the bone to restart the healing process with the cryogel scaffold as a template for bone formation. A physical characterization of methacrylated alginate (MAA) and PRP-loaded cryogels was performed to determine the most suitable fabrication methods for bone applications. Further investigations were performed to assess cell proliferation and infiltration of MG-63 cells on the scaffolds, the rate of PRP elution, and the bioactive molecules being eluted at various time points. In this study, it was found that higher concentrations of PRP and MAA caused an increase in mechanical stiffness; compromising the shape memory properties of the cryogel. However, the addition of freeze-thaw cycles increased the porosity of the matrix while providing a more compressible scaffold that eluted PRP at a faster rate.