How a Teenager’s Backyard Experiment Became a Gel to Stop Deadly Bleeding

In the late 2000s, high schooler Joe Landolina interned in a lab at Columbia University, working on algae-based scaffolds for tissue regeneration. “I thought that was the coolest thing that I'd ever seen,” recalled Landolina, now a biomedical engineer and chief executive officer and cofounder of the company Cresilon, Inc.

Motivated to replicate the scaffolds back at home, he started collecting algae from ponds and other natural materials near his home. And while he never grew tissues using them, “what I did stumble onto was this material that would stick to my skin and wouldn't let go until I wanted it to,” said Landolina. Realizing that the material might have an application in controlling bleeding, he entered it in a business innovation competition as a freshman at New York University (NYU) in 2010 with fellow student Isaac Miller.

“It turns out that the product worked better than we thought it would,” said Landolina, who won first place in the competition, helping him and Miller start their biotechnology company. “Over the last 16 years, we've grown from two guys in a dorm room in NYU to about 100 employees,” said Landolina.

Since the first prototype of the technology, the duo modified and advanced the proprietary hemostatic gel, establishing a Good Manufacturing Practice-certified facility to scale its production. Today, the FDA-cleared plant-based gel, called TRAUMAGEL, is widely used by first responders and emergency physicians. It temporarily stops life-threatening bleeding until patients reach the hospital, helping save the lives of those with traumatic injuries.

From Backyard Science to FDA-Cleared Hemostatic Gel

The journey to making TRAUMAGEL started when, as a young adult with an interest in medicine, Landolina would carry out experiments in his family’s winery lab across the street from his home. His grandfather had been a pharmaceutical executive and started a vineyard after leaving the field. “When I say winery lab, I mean [a] glorified kitchen counter with a bunch of equipment that was permanently borrowed from my grandfather’s former place of employment,” said Landolina.

“My parents were not quite as thrilled as I was at that prospect,” recalled Landolina. Wanting him to carry out experiments in a more regulated environment, they encouraged him to get a summer research internship, which was his first window into the world of tissue engineering.

After first encountering the adhesive biomaterial, Landolina tweaked it until he was left with a biopolymer that created “this sort of viscous gel [with] the consistency of hummus,” he said. This viscosity helps it stick to the wound, creating a mechanical barrier that stops the blood from flowing out and triggering a wound healing cascade that results in a blood clot. “There are no pores or fibers within the gel,” he explained. So, it does not hold onto the clot, unlike materials like gauze or bandages; unlike the gel, these can cause the scab to come off when they are removed, leading to bleeding.

Getting the product market-ready was a whole other journey, said Landolina. The team navigated the complex biotechnology entrepreneurial world, raising capital, setting up facilities to create the gel, and obtaining regulatory approvals. After receiving FDA clearance in 2024, Landolina and his team launched TRAUMAGEL prefilled in a syringe in limited commercial sites in October that year. “We had our first human life saved three days later,” he said.

TRAUMAGEL Could Help Save Lives in the Field

Encouraged by their early success, Landolina and his team released TRAUMAGEL worldwide. Today, their primary customers are emergency services, trauma hospitals, and the military. TRAUMAGEL bridged an important gap in this field since hemorrhage after a traumatic injury is the leading cause of death of Americans aged one to 46.¹ While first responders routinely use tourniquets to prevent blood loss until the patient reaches the hospital, this approach can also cut off blood supply to the affected area, often leading to the need for an amputation.

Early reports using the gel in action have offered some insight into the technology’s potential. In one case, an 84-year-old man suffered from a scalp laceration when he tripped while gardening. When first responders could not control the hemorrhage with gauze, they applied TRAUMAGEL, which in combination with putting pressure on the wound, helped stop the bleeding by the time the patient reached the hospital.²

In a few other cases, TRAUMAGEL applied to large and small gunshot and knife wounds helped medical professionals control hemorrhage and remove tourniquets without causing bleeding.³ Landolina and his team next hope to get more clinical evidence to further evaluate the potential of the gel.

As a freshman in his NYU dorm room, Landolina never would have dreamt that this was where his career would be. One of the most exciting aspects of developing this technology has been interacting with the clinicians who use it and patients on whom it has been used, he said. “It's a side of starting off as the young kid that wanted to be a doctor,” he said. “I've really enjoyed getting to see how we as engineers, with the scale that Cresilon has today, can impact the workflow to improve patient care.”