Professor Mark WJ Ferguson

Email: mark.w.ferguson@manchester.ac.uk

http://  www.renovov-ltd.com http://www.ls.manchester.ac.uk/people/profile/index.asp?id=387

Research Interests

I have a long standing interest in the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying wound repair, specifically as they relate to the biology of scarring and the pathogenesis of non-healing wounds, such as venous ulcers, diabetic ulcers and pressure sores.   My Group have elucidated many of the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying scar free embryonic wound healing and utilised this information to develop new therapeutic strategies to prevent scarring during adult healing.  We have also discovered novel ways of accelerating the healing of chronic wounds in both animals and man.  This research base relates to the ongoing work in the Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration on Tissue Engineering in several important ways.  First, we wish to improve the integration of tissue engineered grafts within the host and to minimise scarring at this interface.  These approaches combine existing experimental data and approaches in my group with novel strategies in tissue engineered scaffolds.  Second, we have a major interest in how stem cells are recruited to and differentiate in adult wounds.  This approach is being exploited within the IRCol to utilise such primitive stem cells, both in in vitro manipulations and transplantation as well as in in vivo recruitment to tissue engineered constructs.  Finally we have a well developed clinical interface focusing on experimental medicine.  This allows us to test any new approaches quickly in man as soon as it is ethically possible to do so.  We intend to exploit this infrastructure and expertise to rapidly investigate the benefits of any putative new tissue engineered constructs or strategies, which we may develop in the IRCol.