Repair, Regeneration, and Differentiation in Humans

We wish to develop a mouse model of wound healing that is based in part on recent advances in genetic analysis, such as genome maps and oligonucleotide arrays for analyzing gene expression, as well as on mouse strains having mutants that over or under-express molecules that have been shown to be important in wound healing. The power of our approach is that it combines these genetic tools with a clinically proven "artificial skin" technology of Yannas and Burke that enables scarless tissue regeneration of the dermis in full thickness skin wounds. By developing a mouse model of the healing of dermal wounds by artificial skin we will be able to analyze and compare dermal tissue repair (scar formation) vs. dermal regeneration in detail. This information can help us develop improved medical devices not only for tissue regeneration of skin, but also other organs, especially nervous tissue. Our objective is to gain a molecular understanding of tissue regeneration that can enable us to improve existing skin and nerve regeneration medical devices and to extend tissue regeneration to other important tissues.