A group of academics and clinicians in different fields at the University of Dundee have received funding to throw their expertise into a 'sandpit' to come up with new solutions for healing wounds.
The 'Sandpit' meeting will see experts in biology, engineering, cardiovascular medicine and mathematics working together to see what new ideas emerge. The aim is to develop novel approaches in regenerative medicine to kick start the healing of chronic ulcers caused by insufficiency in blood supply.
The Dundee group consists of Professor Seth Schor, Dr Ana Schor, Dr Robert Keatch, Professor Jill Belch and Professor Mark Chaplain. Seth explains: "The aim of regenerative medicine is to get the tissues and organs of the body to repair themselves. This approach utilises a variety of strategies, including the development of tissue-engineered implants and drugs to induce body cells to start their own healing process. To do this effectively, it is first necessary to understand the complex interactions of factors which control cell behaviour and how these mechanisms are involved in normal healing and the generation of non-healing wounds."
The object of the sandpit is to address this problem by establishing multi-disciplinary collaborations at the interface between biology and the physical sciences, with a view to applying the expertise of physical scientists to difficult biological problems.
Much is currently understood about the genes and proteins constituting normal cells and tissues. The next great challenge is to unravel how these 'letters' and 'words' fit together to generate the 'sentences' and 'paragraphs' controlling cell behaviour in tissues. This is precisely what the biologists, physical scientists, clinicians and mathematicians will be discussing in the sandpit.
Seth emphasised that the team of experts at the University of Dundee hope to make much needed progress in this area. He explains: "Peripheral vascular disease is commonly responsible for the generation of non-healing wounds. What we need to do is induce the vascular system to generate new and clear blood vessels, a process referred to as 'angiogenesis'. If this can be accomplished, it should be possible to develop better treatments for patients with impaired wound healing and circulation problems."
Last year the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Wellcome Trust issued a joint call for institutions to host sandpit meeting with the aim of engaging life scientists, engineers and physical scientists in developing new approaches and methodologies to improve the modelling and understanding of complexity in biological systems. The problem of tissue level control of angiogenesis put forward by the University of Dundee Group was selected, with a approximately £1 million of research funding reserved to finance the most promising ideas to emerge from the sandpit.
The 'sandpit' meeting will be held in Dundee from 14th-18th December.
Contact Professor Seth Schor 01382 635991
By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910 j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk