RELEASE ON RECEIPT








                                                    CONTACT: Marguerite Beck

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA., Sept. 9 -- Bedsores are not a subject likely to 
be discussed around the dinner table. Yet, each year, approximately two 
million bedridden patients develop bedsores or pressure ulcers at an 
estimated cost of $9 billion in medical charges.
	When vascular and diabetic ulcers are included, the costs are more 
than five times that amount. In addition, the number of days of lost 
productivity among people suffering wounds and delayed or ineffective wound 
healing is greater than for any other health problem in this country.
	At the University of Virginia, engineers have teamed up with 
physicians and researchers to tackle this health problem. With the support of 
a $750,000 grant from the Washington-based Whitaker Foundation, U.Va. has 
established a Center for Engineering of Wound Prevention and Repair.
	"Our clinical goal is to eradicate pressure sores, at least in the 
modern hospital setting," said Tom Skalak, center director. "Our scientific 
goal is to learn about the mechanisms of healing, not only skin wounds, but 
also intestinal ulcers, nerve injury and damage from heart disease and 
stroke -- all the wounds your body has to heal."
	The center, one of only about a dozen in the country, combines the 
existing expertise of U.Va.'s Chronic Wound Care Clinic in the Department of 
Plastic Surgery with new engineering technologies being developed in the 
Department of Biomedical Engineering. 
	What does engineering have to do with wound prevention? "The body can 
be viewed as a mechanical structure just like a bridge, except that its 
mechanical integrity is maintained by a myriad of biochemical reactions," 
Skalak said. "We are studying how wounds develop and how we can prevent them 
by analyzing the mechanical and biochemical events involved. For instance, 
how does a surface load on the outside of the skin affect the underlying 
blood vessels."
	Unlike most wound-healing research, which looks at wound management, 
U.Va.'s center focuses on wound prevention. Using biomedical engineering 
technology, researchers are designing clinical monitoring devices and 
laboratory models to understand how wounds develop so that  better 
preventative measures and wound-repair techniques can be developed.
	The center takes advantage of state-of-the-art tools in engineering 
and cell biology and combines them with studies of actual wound formation and 
healing. "We are studying how cells adhere to other cells in the body," 
Skalak said. "Do they all add up to a properly healed wound with mechanical 
integrity?"
	The new program brings together a multidisciplinary team led by seven 
researchers. Skalak studies arteriolar growth and fluid mechanics of white 
blood cells. John Thacker, professor of mechanical engineering, is an expert 
in measuring the mechanical strength of healing skin. J.S. Lee, chairman of 
biomedical engineering, studies microvascular blood volume control. 
Klaus Ley specializes in leukocyte cell (white blood cell) attachment, which 
is essential to wound repair.
	They join George Rodeheaver, Edlich Professor of Biomedical Research, 
an expert in wound management; Roy Ogle, assistant professor of cell biology, 
studying the role of growth factors in healing; and Gerald Mandell, Cheatham 
Professor of the Sciences, an authority on infection.	
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                                              September 8, 1995