UF wound-healing experts host symposium to share new methods of fighting harmful scarring
New technologies to prevent harmful scars using genetics, growth-blocking drugs and artificial skin were showcased recently at the University of Florida’s Evelyn F. and William L. McKnight Brain Institute, as internationally recognized experts from UF and other institutions shared their latest research findings.
As a result of the symposium, two new collaborations are being formed between researchers at UF and scientists at other institutions, reported Gregory Schultz, Ph.D., a member of UF’s Institute for Wound Research and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology.
Schultz plans to collaborate with Mark Ferguson, Ph.D., a professor with the University of Manchester’s School of Biological Sciences in Manchester, England, and James V. Jester, Ph.D., a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, on a project using sophisticated 3-D imaging to investigate possible treatments for scarring in epithelial (surface) cells found in mucous membranes and the skin’s outermost layer.
Jester and David W. Hahn, Ph.D., an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the UF College of Engineering, will collaborate to develop an instrument to measure the amount of corneal haze in patients with vision problems.
“We’ll each contribute our expertise to the projects, which will move things ahead much faster than if we attempted to do them separately,” said Schultz. “That’s the purest example of scientific collaboration.”
Titled “Breakthroughs in Ocular and Non-Ocular Wound Healing,” the symposium was sponsored by UF’s Center for Vision Research. It was the seventh vision-related symposium funded by the center, said director Mark B. Sherwood, M.D., who also is chairman of UF’s ophthalmology department.
“The hardest thing in research is to take something from the bench to clinical practice, and this symposium was especially exciting because two of our six speakers were intimately involved with taking new research discoveries at the cellular level to clinical trials,” said Sherwood, who helped organize the event.
W. Clay Smith, Ph.D., a UF ophthalmology assistant professor, served as the event’s primary organizer.
One common thread linking the symposium presentations was fibrosis, the formation of abnormal fibrous tissue. A central issue in all wound-healing research, fibrosis can cause scars that result in blindness, disfigurement or impaired physical function.
Glaucoma researcher and UF alumnus Peng T. Khaw, Ph.D., a professor of glaucoma studies and wound healing at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, reported findings from his clinical trials using antibodies that have been shown in animal models to reduce expression of growth factors that promote fibrous scar tissue after glaucoma surgery. Khaw is known for having identified factors that control scar formation in people.
Scar expert Ferguson presented outcomes of clinical trials on developmental drugs that prevent skin scarring in burn victims and internal scarring in surgical patients to try to achieve scarless healing.
UF burn surgeon David Mozingo, M.D., an associate professor of surgery and director of the Shands Burn Center at UF, described new surgical procedures using bioengineered artificial skin to improve scar appearance.
Corneal expert Jester demonstrated computer-assisted 3-D imaging that enables researchers to see through the layers of the cornea and determine the exact location of scarring.
While most often associated with skin disfigurement and vision loss, scarring influences other health problems, including liver cirrhosis, kidney and lung fibrosis, and plaque formation in arteries, Schultz said.
“The health-care costs of failing to control scarring is easily in the billions of dollars because the problem is so prevalent,” Schultz said. “And how do you put a price on loss of vision or the terrible disfigurement that comes from trauma to the skin?”