UQCCR researcher receives NHMRC Achievement Award
On November 30, Associate Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani from
the UQ Centre for Clinical Research, received an achievement award
at the National Health and Medical Research Council's (NHMRC)
75th Anniversary Symposium.
The NHMRC Achievement Awards recognise outstanding achievements
in health and medical research. These are awarded to the highest
scoring applicants in the 2011 peer review of research support and
fellowships schemes.
A/Professor Khosrotehrani received an award for his breakthrough
research on regenerating skin-wounds through stem cell
contribution.
The main focus of his laboratory investigations is on skin-wound
healing and particularly how to regenerate skin instead of forming
scars by understanding stem cell contributions.
"We believe that this knowledge will be important to understand
why some wounds will not heal and why some others will produce
excessive scarring. We also aim at using stem cells to improve the
healing of skin wounds that represent a major burden in our
society" he said.
Although skin stem cells have been used routinely for the
treatment of wounds, they cannot reconstitute a fully functional
skin given the complexity and the many cell types usually involved
in wound healing.
"We hope this project will allow us to isolate stem cells
from the placenta, a tissue that is currently discarded after each
pregnancy".
"These cells could be used to treat patients with wounds that
have a defect in blood vessels. We therefore hope to achieve a
better health outcome for our patients".
Another important aspect of A/Professor Khosrotehrani's research
is to understand parameters that result in advanced life
threatening skin cancers, mainly melanoma, a major cause of death
in Australia.
Media: Contact Kate Sullivan on 0421 819
807
