A joint research team from Bundang Seoul National University Hospital and Sookmyung Women's University won approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a patent on next-generation skin regeneration technology using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), the research that won the 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Because the technology can broaden its applications beyond scar treatment to chronic ulcers and postoperative wounds, its potential for technology transfer and commercialization is drawing attention.
Bundang Seoul National University Hospital said on the 21st that a joint research team led by plastic surgery professor Heo Chan-young and Sookmyung Women's University chemical and biological engineering professor Choi Kyung-min received a patent allowance on the 16th of last month from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for the "MOF-808-based scar management and skin regeneration technology" they developed. The patent office determined the technology can be registered as a patent.
The team filed a U.S. patent for the technology on Feb. 20, 2024. With the allowance, once subsequent registration procedures are completed, they will secure intellectual property rights in the United States for the related technology. The team plans to complete patent registration through the follow-up steps.
The core of the technology is applying "MOF-808," a type of MOF, to silicone patches and artificial skin. MOFs are porous materials in which metal ions and organic molecules combine to form microscopic internal spaces. By controlling the structure, they can capture or store specific substances, so their potential use in various fields such as drug delivery is being studied.
MOFs are also the key material behind last year's Nobel Prize in chemistry. The 2025 Nobel Prize in chemistry was jointly awarded to Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University in Japan, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne in Australia, and Omar Yaghi of UC Berkeley in the United States for the "development of metal-organic frameworks." The Nobel committee said MOFs, with their porous structures that have large internal spaces, can be used for various purposes such as capturing and storing specific substances or promoting chemical reactions.
The MOF-808 used by the team is a porous material composed of zirconium metal and an organic ligand. They focused on the fact that drugs and other agents can be stored in the internal micropores and designed to be released slowly where needed.
The team developed a technology to continuously deliver drugs needed for the skin by applying MOF-808 during the manufacturing process of silicone patches and artificial skin. When the patch is applied to thick, raised hypertrophic scars, the drugs stored inside are slowly released, aiding scar management and skin regeneration.
In particular, the technology's scope of application was broadly recognized to extend beyond hypertrophic scars to various skin diseases and wounds such as chronic ulcers and postoperative wounds. The team said this means the technology was acknowledged for its potential to expand from a simple scar treatment material to broader fields of skin damage and wound treatment.
Heo Chan-young, a plastic surgery professor at Bundang Seoul National University Hospital, said, "This patent allowance is highly meaningful in that it lays the foundation for expanding MOF-808, a next-generation medical material, into the fields of scar management and skin regeneration," adding, "After patent registration, we will review domestic and overseas joint research, technology transfer, and commercialization potential step by step to develop it into a technology that can be applied in real clinical settings."