Research Interests

Basic Science 

Some of our accomplishments in research for Basic Science includes:

1. The discovery that is the combination of aging and diabetes that results in a nearly 50% decrease in healing. These studies:

• provide a biological basis for early intervention
• demonstrate that healing is independent of glycemic control
• provide the first animal model for aging diabetic mice

2. Started a human wound cell bank which resulted in:

• The discovery of one of the first genes that inhibits wound healing in humans.
• The first potential diagnostic molecular assay of healing wounds to guide surgical debridement (see addendum 1 which is modified from NYU press office about our work in 2005).

3. The discovery that human skin equivalent therapy, previously thought to act as a skin graft, accelerates healing through its effect of the controlled release of a series of growth factors from cells; i.e human keratinocytes and fibroblasts. This discovery had major impact as it led clinical research on cellular therapies for chronic wounds, which has resulted in decreased amputations in persons with diabetic foot ulcers, and is the only treatment approved in randomized control trials for venous ulcers.

4. The discovery that local administration and sustained release of growth factor therapy (i.e. ADV-VEGF) stimulates the healing of wounds via stimulation of epithelialization (in vitro and in vivo), collagen production, in addition to its known role in stimulating angiogenesis.