Request Expert

Expert and her mentor, David Taplin were the first to identify flower water as a potential source of hospital acquired bacterial infections. She also worked on and helped develop a medium that has a color indicator to detect dermatophytes. She then turned her attention towards developing animal models that have been validated in the literature for over 25 years. Among these models are ones for acute and burn wound healing. She has studied the process of wound infection including the role of anaerobic and aerobic microrganisms. The models that she developed have been used by other investigators and have validated many therapies that are now commercially available in the wound-care market. Her early work on DuoDerm showed that it was an effective bacterial barrier and the rate of epithelization. The models she developed measure the migration of keratinocytes into and over a wound and/ or burn. The use of biological wound dressing materials, epidermal growth factor, as well as IL1, EGF, TGF beta, fibrin glue have been studied in the model and are in publication in peer review journals. A Human tissue repair model was also developed and used by her group in the Department of Dermatology.

She and her mentor, William H. Eaglstein, MD, were the first to describe the importance of vehicles in the wound healing process. Most recently she has turned her attention to the role of bacterial biofilms in wounds and their effects on wound healing. She is especially interested in the pathogen Acintobacter baumanni that has been responsible for infected wounds in returning Iraq veterans. Her support during her professorship has been mainly from Industry and the military.

She consulted with Occlassen Phama for the development of a research plan to support the antimicrobial claims and wound healing claims of Cadexomer iodine products. The experiments were successful and used in marketing of the product. The product has now been purchased by another group.She consulted with ConvaTec Squibb and developed and in vivo model to demonstrate that DuoDerm could exclude bacteria from a wound. She published the paper and the model is now used by other pharmaceutical companies and is used in marketing of DuoDerm. She and her colleques studied the effects of dressings on wound healing and showed that DuoDerm enhances epithelization of acute wounds. She studied the ability of the liquid band-age made by J & J to exclude bacterial pathogens from wounds. This study is also used for marketing. and she published on the Barrier and Antibacterial Properties of 2-Octyl Cyanoacrylate Derived Wound Treatment. She consulted with Therox and partiscipated in an SBIR grant for topical oxygen emulsion for wound healing. She consulted with Kendall Pharm on "The Use of New Antimicrobial Gauze Dressings: Effects on the Rate of Epithelialization of Partial-Thickness Wounds". She devised a challenge test for Pseudomonas aeruginosa which is uded for marketing of the product.