UC Irvine Giving Day

The purpose of this wound healing project is to do exactly that – advance a method to minimize or completely eliminate scarring based on patented research. Severe burns often heal with painful, disfiguring scars. Existing treatments are slow and rarely restore injured areas to what the skin looked like before the burn. Diabetics also often have delayed wound healing that would benefit from a treatment that could accelerate healing. Bed sores, severe skin infections and even snake bites can result in chronic wounds and poor healing.

The Olabisi Lab’s patented therapy combines insulin secreting cells with adult stem cells. Encapsulating them both in hydrogels, which can then be applied to wounds, accelerates healing and reduces scarring. In preclinical studies, chronic diabetic wounds healed 3 times faster and without scar. Burn healing was also accelerated. Your support will help us uncover how our technology works and take the next steps toward scar-free healing for burns and chronic wounds, and potentially even keloids.

Make a gift today and help us eliminate scarring.

About the Project, led by Dr. Ronke Olabisi and Dr. Mae Jemison

Ronke Olabisi is an associate professor of Biomedical Engineering and an affiliate faculty of the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center at UC Irvine. She joined the BME department in 2020 from Rutgers University where she was an assistant professor in Biomedical Engineering with an affiliation with the Institute of Advanced Materials, Devices, and Nanotechnology. The focus of her lab is tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. By modifying synthetic materials with the natural, her lab develops cell-responsive materials. Specifically, her research has resulted in advances in wound healing, methods to form bone, and discoveries in retinal and neural tissue engineering. In addition to biomedical research, Prof. Olabisi conducts research aimed at increasing the recruitment and persistence of minoritized groups in STEM. For her research, Olabisi is the recipient of a 2016 Engineering Information Foundation Award, a 2018 NSF CAREER Award, a 2019 Johnson & Johnson Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Manufacturing, and Design (WiSTEM2D) Scholar Award, a 2019 Biomedical Engineering Society’s (BMES) Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Award, a 2022 BMES Diversity Lecture Award, and a 2022 NSF Workshop Award. She is a member of 100 Year Starship, an interdisciplinary DARPA-funded initiative that seeks to replicate the rapid technological development stimulated by the moon landings by imagining human interstellar travel. Olabisi earned her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from MIT; two master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and in aeronautical engineering from the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor; and her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She completed postdoctoral research in bioengineering with the West lab while it was at Rice University.

Dr. Jemison, physician, engineer and former NASA astronaut has researched and delivered medical care in well-resourced medical facilities in the US and the extreme environments of the world’s least developed countries and space. She will support the adaptation and translation of the lab results to potential preliminary therapeutic practice.