(5bi) Skin Tissue Engineering: Development of Treatment Strategies for Skin Diseases & Wound Repair and Regeneration

I plan to establish a research group that aims in establishing realistic tissue engineered models of skin that could be used to understand molecular mechanisms involved in skin diseases and wound repair and regeneration. I will then use this knowledge of molecular mechanisms for devising therapeutic strategies for treating these skin diseases and for accelerated wound healing. Lastly, these therapeutic strategies could then be tested on the tissue engineered models that I have developed above before taking them to clinic.

Overall the three interlinked aims in my laboratory will be:

1. Tissue Engineering & Dynamic Tissue Systems: To develop realistic tissue engineered model systems that mimic skin diseases and normal skin function.

2. Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms: To elucidate the important molecular players and molecular mechanisms involved in skin development and skin diseases.

3. Therapeutic Engineering: To develop strategies and platforms for the intervention and perturbation of the identified molecular mechanisms in 2 for treatment of skin diseases.