Poster Presentation 6th Annual Meeting for Australasian Society for Stem Cell Research 2013

Coupling Technologies to Repair Diabetic Foot Ulcers (#132)

Myfanwy M King 1 , Michael R Doran 1 , Bill Lott 1 , Kiarash Khosrotehrani 2
  1. Translational Research Insitute (QUT), Translation Research Insitute (QUT), Woolloongabba, Qld, Australia
  2. Translational Research Institute (UQ), Woolloongabba

Diabetes is a worldwide epidemic currently affecting 347 million people. Of these people, 15% will suffer from chronic wounds and 0.5-3% will be affected by a diabetic foot ulcer (DFU). Currently technologies for treating DFU do little to ease the burden, with 85% of patients requiring amputation of which 15% will die in the first year. As the population ages and obesity levels continue to rise, spurring on the diabetes epidemic, new treatments need to be produced that more effectively treat DFU. Many of the novel technologies being developed exploit, Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSCs), Growth Factors (GFs) or Scaffolds to facilitate DFU repair. My thesis project aims to couple MSC and GF within a scaffold delivery system to maximize their biological potency and DFU repair capacity.  Exogenous GF delivery is expected to “kick-start” healing, while MSC are expected to provide a more sustained stream of essential GF and cytokines, and the scaffold is expected to play important space-filling role within the defect site.  We hope that by coupling these technologies we can offer a potent device for the treatment of DFU.