Solving a medical riddle to achieve scar-less burns and wound healing

January 30, 2007

MBF Foundation is funding a two-year McComb Foundation study that aims to further our understanding of scar-less healing and the development of treatments tailored to individual patient needs.

Led by 2005 Australian of the Year, Professor Fiona Wood, McComb Foundation wants to identify how genetic expression in the skin changes with ageing and how it can affect the comparative healing and scarring rates of older and younger people.

"Findings from the study will go towards achieving our ultimate goal of reducing the disfigurement associated with burn injury," Professor Wood said. "We also hope to gain important knowledge for the development of tailored burns treatments based on an individual’s unique combination of genes."

Fiona Wood is credited with developing ‘spray-on skin’ and led the team of doctors that treated many of the 2002 Bali bombing victims at the Royal Perth Hospital.

Dr Christine Bennett, the chair of the MBF Foundation Steering Committee and MBF chief medical officer, said it was an honour to support McComb Foundation’s vital research, which could benefit the many Australians who suffer each year from serious burns and wounds.

"The McComb Foundation study builds on a great depth of world-first knowledge that Professor Wood and her team have developed," Dr Bennett said. "The study being supported by MBF Foundation has positive implications for the healing of all manner of wounds, not just burns. It is also great to know that Australians will be first in the world to benefit from its findings."

Source: Research Australia