Wounds

Theme members

The skin is one of the largest organs of the human body and serves several functions, including sensation and thermoregulation, but perhaps most importantly, the skin provides a protective barrier against the external environment. This barrier is composed of microbiome, chemical, physical and immune components and is frequently compromised by skin injury. Skin is damaged in a wide range of scenarios ranging from traumatic injury to surgical incisions and burns (sunburn, thermal, chemical), to sterile injury that occurs following ischaemia.

Wound repair is a complex and dynamic process which restores cellular structures and tissue layers to damaged organs; the culmination of this process in the adult is a scar. When tissues are damaged the wound healing response that is initiated can be divided into 4 overlapping phases: haemostasis, inflammation, proliferation, and remodelling. Since skin serves as a protective barrier against the environment, disorders of cutaneous repair can cause disability or death. Aberrant healing responses can result in pathological scarring such as keloids and hypertrophic scars or a failure to heal characterised by tissue destruction generating chronic skin ulcers. Wounds are therefore a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide.

Key sub-themes include

• Mechanisms controlling wound inflammatory processes, especially those involved in the resolution of inflammation (Cash, Rossi, Zhou)
• Exploring the mechanical changes in skin following injury and developing novel sensors to measure these as a route for health monitoring (Crichton)
• Impact of non-coding RNAs, diabetes and peripheral ischaemia on angiogenesis and vascular regeneration (Caporali, Cash).
• Mechanisms underlying scar formation versus regeneration (Saunders, Rossi, Cash, West, Nizar)
• Fabrication of artificial skin constructs and vascular grafts by electrospinning and bioprinting (Radacsi)
• Identifying key molecular pathways involved in determining formation and persistence of chronic non-healing wounds with a view to discovering tractable therapeutic targets. Development of diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers that can be utilised by clinicians to inform ulcer treatment strategy (Cash, Zhou)
• Chronic pain pathophysiology following skin and nerve injury (Torsney, Wilson)
• Using mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) as novel tools for combating antimicrobial resistance in wounds of companion animals and livestock (Esteves). Diagnosis and treatment of skin and wound infections with optical SmartProbes and photodynamic therapy agents (Mills).

Cash Lab

Caporali Lab

Crichton Lab

Radacsi Lab