The workshop on the mathematics of wound prevention and healing last Friday was the kick-off of an international effort to model wound generation and recovery.
The workshop was a follow-up to the symposium on computer methods in biomechanics and biomedical engineering (CMBBE 2014) last week in Amsterdam. Eight speakers who specilialised in wound processes were invited over to Delft for the additional workshop.
“We intend to set up collaborations with them”, says Dr Fred Vermolen, associate professor at the Delft Institute of Applied Mathematics (DIAM) at the EEMCS faculty. “At the CMBBE each speaker had only fifteen minutes for his presentation. We gave them half an hour to allow for their talk and some interaction.”
“A wound is the outcome of a number of variables such as pressure or tension of the tissue and the way they vary over time, the blood flow and oxygen saturation, temperature and more. What we’re working on are mathematical equations that correctly describe wound processes. Over time, we hope that our equations may be used to correctly predict healing or prevent wounds from arising.”
At DIAM, work has been done on bedsores and burns. At the workshop there were presentations of Dr Amit Gefen (University of Tel-Aviv on the mathematics of bedsores); Dr Etelvina Javierre (University of Zaragoza on wound contraction); Prof. Garcia-Aznar (also from Zaragoza on contraction but with another type of modelling); Prof. Daphne Weihs (Technion Israel) on intruding cancer cells; Prof. Roeland Merks (CWI, Universiteit van Amsterdam on generation of new blood vessels); Dr Hans van Oosterwyck (Universiteit Leuven on healing of bone fractures); PhD student Adrian Buganza Tepol from Stanford University on wound contraction and Dr. Fred Vermolen (TU Delft) himself. (Consult the programme below for more information)
The kick-off of the mathematical wound healing initiative will be a review article written by people at the workshop, says Vermolen. It will probably be published in a new Springer magazine called In Silico Cell and Tissue Science. The magazine aims to draw attention to the mathematical approach of wound healing and prevention, says Vermolen who is also one of its two editors in chief.
Dutch Workshop on Mathematical Modelling Wound Prevention and Treatment, 17 October 2014
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