Chandan Sen 

Wound healing, a major research focus in the OSU Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute (DHLRI) and the Department of Surgery, is an area of programmatic development at OSU Medical Center.

Directed by Chandan Sen, PhD, professor of Surgery and Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, the Wound Healing Program of the OSU Department of Surgery started in the DHLRI’s Laboratory of Molecular Medicine.

“Our goal is to establish a multi-investigator translational program that takes research to clinical care and offers an environment for research training of basic and clinical scientists,” says Sen, who is also associate director of the DHLRI.

OSU has approved a proposal for a new Comprehensive Wound Center (CWC) to open in autumn 2005 at the Martha Morehouse Medical Plaza in Columbus.

“Our Wound Healing Clinic treats over 500 patients every month. This new facility will provide a great opportunity for clinical research in our new CWC,” says Sen, whose research focuses on wound angiogenesis with emphasis on the role of oxygen in wound healing. “Tools enabling the non-invasive imaging of oxygen in the wound will take us to the next level of clinical care.”

Periannan Kuppusamy, PhD, associate professor of Internal Medicine, is working with Sen to develop that capability. Jay Zweier, MD, professor of Internal Medicine and director of the DHLRI, is a co-investigator. Zweier and Kuppusamy are leaders in oxygen imaging.

Clay Marsh, MD, and John Sheridan, PhD, also are integral to the Wound Healing Program. “They are looking respectively into the inflammation and stress aspects of wound healing,” Sen says. “We all function as one team.”

Sen’s research has led to new therapeutic modalities at OSU. Mentored by Sen, plastic surgeon Gayle Gordillo, MD, has won a five-year award from the National Institutes of Health for training as a physician scientist. Sashwati Roy, PhD, assistant professor of Surgery, is building a research program focused on removal of dead cells from diabetic wounds.

“The OSU Information Warehouse, led by Jyoti Kamal, is an asset for the Wound Healing Program. We are planning a major research database of information collected from wound clinics nationwide,” Sen says, adding that Joel Saltz, MD, PhD, professor and chair of the OSU Department of Biomedical Informatics, is a partner in this.

Key corporate partners have pledged support for the program. Sen believes OSU programs in tissue engineering, diabetes, dermatology, pathology, neuroscience, infectious diseases, emergency medicine and related disciplines also have the scope to partner with the program and position OSU among the top academic medical centers for wound healing.

Dr. Sen’s co-investigators are: Robert Bartlett, MD; Valerie Bergdall, DVM; Gayle Gordillo, MD; Sorabh Khandelwal, MD; W. Scott Melvin, MD; Sashwati Roy, PhD; and Richard Schlanger, MD, PhD. Other team members are: Samantha Bellamy, RN; Sabyasachi Biswas, PhD; Craig Broussard, RN, PhD; Savita Khanna, PhD; Donald Kuhn, PhD; Lynn Lambert, CHT; Navdeep Ojha, GRA; and Cameron Rink, GRA.