Researchers hope to achieve healthy ageing by enhancing body healing capacity and reducing chronic inflammation.
Why does wound-healing deteriorate with advanced age? This issue will be addressed thanks to a research grant of nearly €11 million from the European Commission (EC).
Paolo Madeddu, Professor of Experimental Cardiovascluar Medicine at the Bristol Heart Institute, is a member of an international consortium that has received the EC grant. The consortium will try to understand the molecular mechanisms that cause impaired wound-healing and organ repair due to ageing or illness.
The study, known as "RESOLVE" will be co-ordinated by the Medical University of Vienna and aims to compare healthy and diseased wound-healing.
The UK team lead by Bristol University's Professor Madeddu will receive over €900 000. Their contribution will be to co-ordinate clinical studies on models of healing - concentrating on the impact of diabetes and ageing on tissue repair mechanisms.
Professor Madeddu will be responsible for delivering the "Research Activities in Human Model Diseases" part of the project. The basis for all human studies is a combination of careful clinical assessment of disease conditions and sequential analysis of biological data - to identify relevant molecular targets and separate them from those connected to regular organ repair.
Human studies will address aspects of major clinical relevance, such as good wound-healing in young individuals, non-healing diabetic foot ulcers, and chronic inflammation leading to scar formation in lung, liver and heart of ageing people.