Grant: Project Grant

Scar formation following injury to skin is a common, unwanted outcome of the wound healing process. Clinically, scars can range from fine lines to expansive, disfiguring hypertrophic or keloid scars. Regardless of the type of scars, they lead to considerable psychosocial impacts or physical complications or both for the individual involved. At least 45 million patients in the United States alone undergo procedures that could benefit from therapies that reduce scar formation, resulting in a $4 billion anti-scarring therapy market annually. During the past decades, using various animal models, steady progress has been made to identify factors that may reduce scar formation. In spite of these advances, no effective therapy to predictably prevent scar formation exists today. Intriguingly, studies from several laboratories using rodent models have indicated significantly faster wound healing in oral mucosa than in skin. Our findings using a validated pig model have provided the first systematical evidence that oral mucosal wound healing also results in significantly reduced scar formation as compared to skin wounds. Importantly, connective tissue cells, called fibroblasts, in skin and oral mucosa have different properties that may contribute to the different wound-healing outcomes. In this preclinical study, we will develop novel bioengineered skin substitutes carrying oral mucosal fibroblasts to test whether they can be used to promote wound healing and prevent scar formation in skin using the pig model. This study will pave the way for the development of novel clinical applications for humans to promote fast and scarless wound healing in skin by using oral mucosal fibroblasts.