New research gets the blood pumping
New treatments for chronic, slow-healing wounds and peripheral artery disease may be one outcome of new research published today in the journal Circulation Research.
The study outlines the ways in which a connective muscle tissue protein called "fibronectin" affect blood flow.
"Our data study suggests that engineering fibronectin could provide a simple, elegant way to maintain normal blood vessel function in the aging, and to restore such function in hard-to-heal wounds," said Ingrid H. Sarelius, Ph.D., professor of Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and a study author.
"Applying topical ointments that contain our
engineered fibronectin fragments to chronic wounds should increase nutritive
blood flow to accelerate healing," she added.
