Research
Strategy: Innovations in Wound Repair, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine.
TIWR leadership combines expertise in the biology of wound healing with engineering of micropatterned and microstructured biomaterials, enabling the design of systems that actively engage with injured tissues to accelerate and guide the body’s natural healing responses.
At TIWR, there is a highly-skilled team of internationally-recognized wound care specialists that includes vascular surgeons, burn care physicians, bioengineers, stem cell and molecular biologists, as well as basic scientists whose expertise in the biology of wound healing extends through tissue repair science, extracellular matrix biology, the angiogenesis of wound healing, epithelial cell biology and microbial pathogenesis.
The unique marriage embodied by TIWR enables the design and fabrication of biologically-active, ‘smart’ wound dressings that will foster the acceleration of healing, regardless of the inflicted wound type. Furthermore, this collaboration amongst the investigators reflects a unique and effective merger of the critical skill sets required to achieve success in solving as complex a problem as thermal injury treatment. Appropriate dressings, taking advantage of the fundamental knowledge and technologies of our team members will not only offer innovations in wound healing within the wound care clinic; but, equally importantly on the battlefield. The management of pain and edema and the prevention of water loss and wound infection are of central importance immediately after thermal injury, which can each be addressed by the technologies brought together in this collaborative effort. Whether we are developing field-ready, acute devices or bio-engineered constructs to be used over protracted periods of time, TIWR aims to control and deliver bioactive agents for the targeted activation and promotion of wound healing for specific patients’ and wound warriers’ needs.