PHAS · Development of a new generation of bioengineered bandages

Skin wounds are of major causes for global disease burden, affecting millions of people worldwide. Furthermore, over half of skin wounds become infected, which is a major limiting factor for recovery, especially after severe burns. Indeed, because of modern resuscitation procedures, burn patients usually survive the initial trauma and it is the burn wound infection that remains the major cause of mortality and healing delay. This is particularly true for severely burned patients for whom immediate wound closure is not possible, leaving them for very long periods of time non-grafted. Treatment is associated with prolonged hospitalizations and significant costs, without mentioning the severe pain, emotional and physical strain that the burn trauma inflicts to the individual affected. We propose here to develop a novel bioactive skin substitute to cope with the burden of infections, and thus align with the World Health Organization’s strategic plan for effective and sustainable burn prevention and care policies. As the ultimate aim is to translate the novel approach in regenerative medicine from bench-side to bedside, I will engage in the frame of this action a synergistic endeavor with several actors of their respective field, to boost the research and meet the imposed regulatory requirements for the introduction of new treatments into clinics, as well as to use cutting-edge techniques such as metagenomics and MALDI-TOF to determine the temporal diversity and evolution of microbial communities for various burn patient cohorts.