Biomimetic Synthetic Grafts for Bone Regeneration and Epithelial Healing

全世界数以百万计的患者因事故、癌症、感染或出生缺陷而遭受严重的皮肤和骨骼损伤。这些疾病对患者的生活质量产生了毁灭性的影响，往往危及生命，并导致医疗机构的高昂成本。目前，通过复杂的外科手术移植新鲜身体的活组织，可以重建包括皮肤和骨骼(即四肢、面部)在内的身体部分。尽管这项技术显示出了巨大的潜力，但活体器官移植需要强有力的免疫抑制疗法，这会大大缩短患者的预期寿命。目前，还没有设计用于再生涉及骨骼和皮肤的损伤的人造材料。Tamimi博士的研究项目旨在开发合成材料，以消除对身体移植物的需求。

Millions of patients worldwide suffer from severe injuries involving skin and skeleton due to accidents, cancer, infection or birth defects. These conditions have devastating impact on the quality of life of the patients, are often life-threatening, and result in high costs to healthcare agencies. Currently, reconstruction of body parts that include skin and bone (i.e. limbs, face) has been made possible through complex surgical transplantation of living tissues from fresh cadavers. Although this technique has shown great potential, transplantation of living organs requires strong immunosuppressive therapies that reduce considerably the life expectancy of the patients. Currently there are no artificial materials designed to regenerate injuries involving both bone and skin. Dr. Tamimi's research program aims at developing synthetic materials that would eliminate the need for cadaver grafts.