You've had an accident.

Healing the sizable gash on your leg will rely on skin taken from another part of your body, creating more pain and opening your body to further risk of infection. Even after it heals, you'll probably be left with an indentation where muscle used to be.

But what if it didn't have to be that way? What if doctors could take a bandage-like polymer, seeded with the patient's skin cells and muscle cells, and grow new skin and muscle inside the wound?

For now, it's still just a fascinating idea.

But a group of Northeast Ohio researchers and doctors hope to push the concept toward reality, while at the same time making Akron a nationally known center for wound care.

The first step came 11 years ago when they created the Northeastern Ohio Consortium for Wound Healing Research and Education. The next step is a statewide conference in Akron, scheduled for October.

The hope is that the conference — Healing Ohio:
Showcasing Wound Care Competencies — will bring together wound care experts from across the state to share expertise and build collaborations, said Dr. James Dougherty, chairman of medical education and research at Akron General Medical Center.

''It's really very clear: to do the best work, you have to reach out. You have to collaborate with people,'' Dougherty said.

For most of us, Band-Aids — or at worst, stitches — are enough to take care of a wound.

But there are some conditions, including diabetes, blocked arteries and damaged veins, and medications, such as immune suppressants, that make it difficult to heal properly. In these patients, wounds can become chronic, painful problems requiring special interventions.

''Wound care is such a huge issue,'' said Steven Schmidt, Summa Health System's director of research. ''The magnitude and debilitation, it's heartbreaking. It's truly heart-breaking.''

The consortium has been investigating drug-coated polymers and oxygen therapy to speed healing, as well as the growth of new skin, muscle, blood vessels, and nerves.

Original members of the consortium include Akron General, Summa, Akron Children's Hospital, the University of Akron, Kent State University and the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM).

The Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University are recent additions, as are several small businesses.

''People are taking an interest,'' said consortium chairwoman Judy Fulton, a research biochemist at Akron General. ''You can do a lot more when you're working as a team than when you're working individually.''

Fulton points to the idea of using polymers and the patient's cells for wound healing. The University of Akron is providing the polymer research, Akron General is undertaking the skin research and NEOUCOM is leading the muscle research.

Summa and Akron General researchers have been working together to investigate a matchbox-sized device that can extract oxygen from the air, then deliver the oxygen to the wound via a catheter under the bandage. The idea is that patients could receive oxygen therapy without the long — and to some, claustrophobic — commitment to a hyperbaric chamber.

''This is a great opportunity for clinicians and basic scientists to work together and deal with some real-life problems,'' she said.

It's still too soon to claim that the consortium's work has changed patient care significantly.

Getting a new medical product to patients takes years and years of research and testing, all the way from the basic idea, to validation of the idea in a lab, to animal testing, to clinical trials in humans, Fulton said. ''You don't just do a few experiments and have a product on your hands.''

Between the consortium's member hospitals, the two universities and the medical school, Fulton said the Akron area has the expertise and lab space to work through that long process.

Research is great, said Robert Anthony, Akron General's manager of technology transfer, but it has to eventually lead to patient care, which is where the business community comes in. ''We want to be the voice that says, 'Think about where this might end up. Think about a commercial product if you can.' ''