RESEARCH

Research is a cornerstone of the Columbia Wound Healing Center. Our research is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the American Diabetes Association (ADA). In the past, we have also received a generous grant from the United Spinal Association.

Clinical Trials

Select patients may be asked to participate in a randomized clinical trial. These trials test novel therapies to advance wound healing. Your treatment at the Columbia Wound Healing Center in no way depends on joining this trial.

Another possibility is that you may be asked to donate your debrided tissue that would otherwise be discarded. This tissue can help us to better understand the mechanisms of wound healing.

Recently, in collaboration with Marjana Tomic-Canic, PhD, Director, Laboratory of Tissue Repair, Hospital for Special Surgery, our program discovered the first gene and protein that was found to stop a wound from healing. In other words, we learned that your body makes a specific protein that stops wounds from healing. In the future, we hope to understand how this protein is made and, potentially, how to use a single drug to target a specific type of wound.

In addition, the NIH supports our basic research laboratory, where we investigate the mechanisms of why wounds do not heal and specifically develop therapies to accelerate wound closure. Specifically, by using a specific type of protein called VGEF (Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor) in a delivery system through either a gene or polymer, we have found that wounds can close much faster. Potentially this could help decrease limb amputations even for those with bedsores. Through the laboratory work we do today, we hope to make these therapies available for patients in the future.

Finally, every patient who comes in becomes part of our documentation system, Wound Electronic Medical Record. By placing all the information necessary to treat a patient in one place, this documentation can lead to faster healing, a decreased amputation rate, and decreased progression of Stage IV pressure ulcers. This work has also been generously supported by the NIH and the National Library of Medicine.