Skin wound healing
Chronic wounds are a common and severe medical problem lacking efficient treatments. They are trapped in a constant inflammatory state and fail to progress through the normal stages of wound healing. Although constituting the majority of the transcriptional output of the human genome, the functional importance of non-protein-coding RNA (ncRNAs) has only recently been recognized. Compared to protein-coding genes, ncRNAs' expression and function are more tissue- and cell-type-specific, underscoring their great potential as precise therapeutic and diagnostic entities.
Our research aims to understand the role of ncRNAs in the skin immune system in response to injury and identify ncRNAs capable of resolving chronic wound inflammation and reactivating the healing program. For this, we are making efforts to (i) establish a gene expression map of human acute, and chronic wounds with single-cell resolution; (ii) identify the biological functions and the underlying molecular mechanisms of wound-related ncRNAs; (iii) develop RNA-based wound treatments. From a new angle, our study will add to the understanding of wound biology and chronic wound pathogenesis, which will open new avenues for disease stratification and highlight novel drug targets for clinical studies.
