- Email: [email protected]
Bioengineering research in tissue viability
Journal of Tissue Viability (2010) 19, 33e34
www.elsevier.com/locate/jtv
EDITORIAL
Bioengineering research in tissue viability We are pleased to present this Special Issue on Bioengineering in Tissue Viability to the readership of the journal. Challenges in preventing and treating chronic wounds create one of the most important areas of unsolved medical problems, impacting the life of many, decreasing the quality of life of many others, and costing billions in each country. Chronic wounds affect diverse but at the same time large patient populations, such as those with neuromuscular injuries and diseases, diabetes or geriatric patients. Considering that the size of the elderly population is continuously increasing, and that the number of newly diagnosed diabetes cases is climbing up throughout the Western world, the scale of tissue viability related problems is projected to grow even greater in the near future. Unfortunately, until recently, wounds in soft tissues received relatively little attention from the bioengineering research community. Enormous medical progress has been achieved by bioengineers, for example in developing life-saving cardiovascular procedures (balloon angioplasty, stents), in diagnosing cancer (the gastrointestinal camera capsule, virtual colonoscopy) or in regaining functionality for orthopaedic patients (artificial knee or hip joints). Following a similar strategy, a huge amount of bioengineering knowledge on means and methodologies to study physiological and pathophysiological processes in tissues has been accumulated. As understanding strikes that chronic wounds are a major cause of morbidity, mortality and loss of healthcare budgets e just like cardiovascular, orthopaedic or metastatic diseases e the attention of many bioengineers has transitioned to chronic wounds. Bioengineers employ state-of-the-art experimental and computational research methods to study the aetiologies and potential ways to treat or prevent chronic wounds, from the cellular level to the organ level. The
Journal of Tissue Viability is taking a leadership role in encouraging and strengthening the role of bioengineering research in the field of chronic wounds. This Special Issue highlights the excellent work from several international research groups who study different aspects of the problem. The five research papers included in this special issue represent the range of bioengineering research approaches in tissue viability nowadays. The papers demonstrate and utilize a variety of basic research tools that compliment each other when combined. These include (i) Computer modeling and simulations of wounds and wound healing, (ii) Animal models of pathophysiological changes in tissues which contribute to susceptibility to wounds, and also of changes that occur during wound development. (iii) Sophisticated tissue imaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging which are able to depict soft tissue damage in real-time, (iv) Biomolecular studies of tissue damage markers with an overall goal of early detection of wounds and injuries, and (v) Novel biomaterials designed for wound dressings. Hence, the clinical relevance of these papers spans from understanding aetiologies to treatment and early diagnosis. Dissemination of top-quality bioengineering research of chronic wounds via the Journal of Tissue Viability will continue beyond this special issue, in a long-lasting framework, by establishing a regularly published thematic section on bioengineering topics in subsequent issues of the journal. Hence, in this issue and in the following thematic sections, we intend to offer the readership of the journal access to the frontier of knowledge in tissue-viability-related bioengineering research. We strongly believe that focusing the attention of a critical mass of bioengineers on tissue viability topics and bridging potential gaps between bioengineers and
0965-206X/$36 ª 2009 Tissue Viability Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtv.2009.11.007
34
Editorial
clinicians in this field can make research achievements in preventing and healing wounds remarkable, and comparable to some of the revolutionary bioengineering achievements in other fields of medicine. Amit Gefen Ph.D* Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University,
Tel Aviv 69978, Israel E-mail address: [email protected] *Tel.: þ972 3 640 8093; fax: þ972 3 640 5845. Laura E. Edsberg Ph.D Director, Center for Wound Healing Research, Associate Professor, Natural Sciences Department, Daemen College, Amherst NY 14226, USA E-mail address: [email protected]
www.elsevier.com/locate/jtv
EDITORIAL
Bioengineering research in tissue viability We are pleased to present this Special Issue on Bioengineering in Tissue Viability to the readership of the journal. Challenges in preventing and treating chronic wounds create one of the most important areas of unsolved medical problems, impacting the life of many, decreasing the quality of life of many others, and costing billions in each country. Chronic wounds affect diverse but at the same time large patient populations, such as those with neuromuscular injuries and diseases, diabetes or geriatric patients. Considering that the size of the elderly population is continuously increasing, and that the number of newly diagnosed diabetes cases is climbing up throughout the Western world, the scale of tissue viability related problems is projected to grow even greater in the near future. Unfortunately, until recently, wounds in soft tissues received relatively little attention from the bioengineering research community. Enormous medical progress has been achieved by bioengineers, for example in developing life-saving cardiovascular procedures (balloon angioplasty, stents), in diagnosing cancer (the gastrointestinal camera capsule, virtual colonoscopy) or in regaining functionality for orthopaedic patients (artificial knee or hip joints). Following a similar strategy, a huge amount of bioengineering knowledge on means and methodologies to study physiological and pathophysiological processes in tissues has been accumulated. As understanding strikes that chronic wounds are a major cause of morbidity, mortality and loss of healthcare budgets e just like cardiovascular, orthopaedic or metastatic diseases e the attention of many bioengineers has transitioned to chronic wounds. Bioengineers employ state-of-the-art experimental and computational research methods to study the aetiologies and potential ways to treat or prevent chronic wounds, from the cellular level to the organ level. The
Journal of Tissue Viability is taking a leadership role in encouraging and strengthening the role of bioengineering research in the field of chronic wounds. This Special Issue highlights the excellent work from several international research groups who study different aspects of the problem. The five research papers included in this special issue represent the range of bioengineering research approaches in tissue viability nowadays. The papers demonstrate and utilize a variety of basic research tools that compliment each other when combined. These include (i) Computer modeling and simulations of wounds and wound healing, (ii) Animal models of pathophysiological changes in tissues which contribute to susceptibility to wounds, and also of changes that occur during wound development. (iii) Sophisticated tissue imaging methods such as magnetic resonance imaging which are able to depict soft tissue damage in real-time, (iv) Biomolecular studies of tissue damage markers with an overall goal of early detection of wounds and injuries, and (v) Novel biomaterials designed for wound dressings. Hence, the clinical relevance of these papers spans from understanding aetiologies to treatment and early diagnosis. Dissemination of top-quality bioengineering research of chronic wounds via the Journal of Tissue Viability will continue beyond this special issue, in a long-lasting framework, by establishing a regularly published thematic section on bioengineering topics in subsequent issues of the journal. Hence, in this issue and in the following thematic sections, we intend to offer the readership of the journal access to the frontier of knowledge in tissue-viability-related bioengineering research. We strongly believe that focusing the attention of a critical mass of bioengineers on tissue viability topics and bridging potential gaps between bioengineers and
0965-206X/$36 ª 2009 Tissue Viability Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jtv.2009.11.007
34
Editorial
clinicians in this field can make research achievements in preventing and healing wounds remarkable, and comparable to some of the revolutionary bioengineering achievements in other fields of medicine. Amit Gefen Ph.D* Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Tel Aviv University,
Tel Aviv 69978, Israel E-mail address: [email protected] *Tel.: þ972 3 640 8093; fax: þ972 3 640 5845. Laura E. Edsberg Ph.D Director, Center for Wound Healing Research, Associate Professor, Natural Sciences Department, Daemen College, Amherst NY 14226, USA E-mail address: [email protected]