The Cleveland Cord Blood Center’s (CCBC’s) Wound Healing Project has launched into its next phase of exploration. Through the wound healing project, the research team is investigating how umbilical cord blood monocytes and platelet rich plasma may prove helpful in treating patients with chronic infected wounds who are at greatest risk of amputation. These patients often include diabetics, burn victims, and those with pressure ulcers.
“We are focusing on two problems – combating multi-drug resistant forms of bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and penetrating the biofilm surrounding and protecting the bacteria, both of which make successful treatment with conventional antibiotics highly challenging,” said Research Associate Heather Carey. She is collaborating with biomaterials expert Eben Alsberg, Ph.D., researcher and professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, to determine an effective therapeutic cell scaffold material to use to hold the therapy at the site of infection.
In the first quarter of 2022, Carey launched animal testing using a mouse model for proof of concept and safety. The research is being conducted in partnership with the Case Western Reserve University Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Preliminary results are anticipated for summer 2022. “We have a good amount of evidence that our approach penetrates bacterial biofilms, while most antibiotics do not. We’re looking to show that bacterial biofilm penetration by our therapeutic results in the clearance of infected wounds in a mouse model,” said Carey. “Patients with chronic wound infection who lose a limb to amputation face a five-year survival rate of only 27 percent. We are out to change those dire circumstances.”