Wound repair in skin and bone

Martin Braddock
From: Science & Medicine: Volume 8 Number 4: Page 218 (August 2002)

Abstract: Wounds of skin or bone that fail to heal are frustrating and often debilitating. While standard care for chronic skin ulcers or fracture non-union is generally successful, ways to improve or accelerate wound healing beyond that achieved with conservative care are needed. Investigations of cellular and molecular events involved in tissue repair have shown that common mechanisms operate in different tissues. Efforts to accelerate wound healing by administering individual growth factors have had limited success, so attention has turned to transcription factors. Wounded tissue expresses different genes than healthy tissue, and the activity of certain transcription factors induced by injury may be enhanced to promote the healing process.

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