Gaharwar and his fellow researchers in the biomedical engineering department have found a way to extend this golden hour—using clay.

Gaharwar, Dr. Duncan Maitland and Dr. Taylor Ware are developing a suite of injectable hemostatic bandages—biomedical materials that stop bleeding and promote blood to clot faster. Their research is specifically targeting deep internal bleeding where traditional methods like compression are not possible.

Two papers, recently published in Advanced Science and Advanced Functional Materials demonstrate that these dressings can reduce bleeding time by almost 70%.

“Under normal circumstances, human blood clots within six to seven minutes,” said Gaharwar. “Using these hemostatic dressings, we are able to reduce the clotting time to one to two minutes.”