VIDEO: A revolutionary gel that can stop bleeding instantly is being made inside a sterile lab in Brooklyn โ and itโs about to go nationwide. Called TraumaGel, the plant-based product was first discovered by a teenager and could soon transform how EMTs and hospitals respond to trauma. But for now, families waiting for an at-home version will have to hold on just a bit longer.
Inside Cresilon Inc.โs ultra-sterile facility at Industry City in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, every syringe of TraumaGel is produced from start to finish. This plant-based gel โ with the consistency of hummus โ is designed to stop bleeding almost instantly. When applied to a moderate or severe wound, it holds pressure from both sides using long polymer chains, creating a seal that stops the bleed and gives responders critical time.
โThe polymer chains in here are long. Theyโre almost on a millimeter scale. And so that means that itโs only a couple atoms wide, but very, very long chains that can hold from either side of the wound and maintain that pressure,โ said Cresilon Inc. co-founder Joe Landolina.
Before it was FDA-approved or mass-produced, TraumaGel began in a much humbler lab โ a makeshift setup in a Hudson Valley vineyard. Joe Landolina was just a Brooklyn teenager experimenting with algae and biomaterials when he created a sticky compound that bonded with skin and wouldnโt let go. That early discovery sparked his passion for biotech, and by age 17, he was studying at NYU and preparing for something bigger. โI was trying to extract polymers out of algae for something else, as you do as a 17-year-old, and I noticed that this material I made would stick to skin, and it wouldnโt let go until I wanted it to,โ he said.
