Topical Soft Tissue Treatment Technology

Development of readily forward-deployable therapeutic measures to enhance wound healing and skin graft survival could promote earlier restoration to health and return to duty. To address the Armys need for a topical wound treatment with recombinant heat shock proteins (rHSPs) that can be applied to wounds to promote wound healing and skin graft survival, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new topical soft tissue treatment (TOSTT) technology. The applied TOSTT releases rHSPs into the extracellular compartment of the wound where they come into direct contact with cellular components essential to the repair process. Development of TOSTT may enhance healing and skin graft survival for complex wounds caused by injury or disease. In Phase I, POC developed the formulation and demonstrated its efficacy to accelerate wound healing and extend skin graft survival in pilot animal studies. In Phase II, further therapeutic evaluation and elucidation of the mechanism of TOSTTs action on extended skin graft survival in in vivo murine and porcine models as well as an in vitro human skin model will be performed.