"Developing new and personalized approaches for healing challenging
wounds"
Year: 2012
Institution: UMDNJ - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Principal Investigator: Dr. Henry Hsia
Research Category: Basic Science
Replacing skin and other tissue lost to disease or injury has been a perennial
challenge for clinicians, and healing of large complex wounds is often only
accomplished after a patient has suffered much pain, scarring, and
disfigurement. The ideal wound treatment would promote regenerative healing
by stimulating the patient's own tissue to heal wounds with minimal scar
formation and maximal skin function. However, great variation exists among
patients in their capacities to heal. The ideal treatment would therefore also
optimally accommodate personalized approaches when necessary. However,
there is currently little data regarding variation in cell behavior and response
among wounds in individual patients, and no consistent method exists for
obtaining such information. Using 3-D culturing techniques, this project studies
tissue samples collected from patients to investigate how different cell types
found in human skin wounds interact with each other under various laboratory
conditions and how these responses differ among individual patients and
whether they correlate with clinical healing. Better understanding of these cell
interactions and their variations will benefit patients suffering from extensive
wounds or scarring by contributing to the development of treatments that will
allow healing with fully functional skin tissue.
The above project description has been supplied by the Principal Investigator