Research project

Chronic wounds such as foot ulcers are difficult to treat and imply great pain, restrictions in everyday life and uncertainty about healing for those who are affected. Among other things, various pre-existing conditions such as diabetes (systematic disease) as well as increasing age favor a chronic course of disease. In view of rising life expectancies and an increasing incidence of systematic diseases, the number of cases in today's society is expected to rise in the future.
In the case of chronic skin diseases, disturbed cell proliferation in the wound bed often prevents healing. Biocompatible and biodegradable hydrogels based on proteins (e.g. collagen hydrogels) provide good conditions as scaffold to support the proliferation of surrounding cells, to boost the body's own matrix assembling and to accelerate the wound healing in general (a positive influence of collagen on wound healing is known from literature). In order to additionally promote wound healing, various biologically active substances will be included into the hydrogel and their release profiles will be investigated.
In summary, hydrogels based on biopolymers will be synthesized, various application-relevant, biologically active substances will be embedded and their release and influence on the surrounding tissue will be examined.