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Conference is stage for building network for new perspective
By Tracy Wheeler
Beacon Journal medical writer
Published on Monday, Sep 22, 2008
Endocrinologists worry about healing difficult wounds in their diabetic patients.
Oncologists focus on healing wounds left behind after surgery on their cancer patients.
Nursing home doctors monitor pressure sores on their bed-ridden patients.
And emergency room doctors repair wounds and broken bones of trauma patients.
The point is, one doctor's treatment of wounds isn't always the same as another doctor's. A diabetic wound isn't like a bedsore. A trauma wound isn't the same as one caused by cancer surgery.
Still, there might be something for these specialists — and the researchers studying healing methods in the lab — to share with one another.
And that's why a group of local experts decided there's a need to bring Ohio's wound-care experts together to share their knowledge through the Heal Ohio 2008: Showcasing Wound Care Competencies conference Oct. 2 at the Sheraton Suites Akron/Cuyahoga Falls.
''Wound care is everywhere,'' said Robert Anthony, Akron General Medical Center's manager of technology transfer and a driving force behind the conference. ''Wound care is at all levels of medicine, in at-home care, in nursing homes, in wound-care centers, in burn units, in surgery, on the battlefield. It's everywhere.
''At the same time, because it's so diffuse, people just don't talk enough.''
The hope of the conference is to build relationships among doctors, nurses, researchers, hospitals and universities that might come at wound care from different perspectives, Anthony said. Participants might find another hospital or university is working on a project similar to theirs, leading to collaboration. And corporate research and development managers, entrepreneurs and investors
could find new potential for commercialization.
''We want to take all this good science that we already have and, as a collective network, translate all that to the patients,'' Anthony said, ''so there are faster benefits to the patients.''
The conference will focus on a variety of topics, including chronic wounds, diabetic wounds, burns and the use of cell-based therapy, polymers and biologic materials in wound healing, as well as developing business strategies that will move research from the lab to the marketplace more quickly.
After all, if the research doesn't reach the marketplace, it doesn't help anybody. Gerald Mearini, president of Highland Heights-based TeraPhysics, will attend the conference with this in mind. His company's Teratron device might prove to be a whole new approach to treating wounds.
Using terahertz wave lengths, the device can identify how well the wound is healing or whether it's infected, by analyzing gases that permeate the wound.
''By cataloguing that, you know what phase the wound is in and can more effectively treat the wound,'' Mearini said.
The next step is to attract investors and get the Teratron on the market.
William Landis, a professor of biochemistry, molecular pathology and orthopedic surgery at the Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM), is looking at healing wounds through the use of adult stem cells, such as growing muscle, bone, cartilage and nerve tissue from the patient's own cells or donated cells. (Skin is already grown in labs, often for burn patients.)
Each type of cell, though, needs a different kind of ''biomaterial'' to spur its growth. The challenge is to find the right combinations.
''We're not that far away'' from moving this technology from the lab to patient care, Landis said. ''It's a very high likelihood that the field could be pretty far along in the next five years.''
And, Anthony said, maybe Landis will run into someone else at the conference who can make it happen even faster.
For information about the Heal Ohio conference, go to http://www.akrongeneral.org/healohio
Tracy Wheeler can be reached at 330-996-3721 or tawheeler@thebeaconjournal.com.
Endocrinologists worry about healing difficult wounds in their diabetic patients.
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