Grants We Funded
Grant applicants for the 2023 cycle requested a total of nearly $4 million dollars. The PSF Study Section Subcommittees of Basic & Translational Research and Clinical Research evaluated nearly 140 grant applications on the following topics:
The PSF awarded research grants totaling over $1 million dollars to support nearly 30 plastic surgery research proposals.
ASPS/PSF leadership is committed to continuing to provide high levels of investigator-initiated research support to ensure that plastic surgeons have the needed research resources to be pioneers and innovators in advancing the practice of medicine.
Research Abstracts
Search The PSF database to have easy access to full-text grant abstracts from past PSF-funded research projects 2003 to present. All abstracts are the work of the Principal Investigators and were retrieved from their PSF grant applications. Several different filters may be applied to locate abstracts specific to a particular focus area or PSF funding mechanism.
Case-Matched Analysis of Fibroblast Function in Patients with Keloids
Chris Campbell MD, FACS
2008
University of Virginia
Basic Research Grant
Wounds/Scar
Keloids represent aggressive and prolonged fibroblast responses to cutaneous trauma with significant disfigurement, and in many instances functional impairment. Many treatments have been employed with unacceptably high rates of recurrence. Recent advances in studies of systemic markers of disease and the role of circulating progenitor cells in other inflammatory conditions have demonstrated a common pathway for regional trafficking of fibroblasts that could be inhibited in order to prevent aberrant postoperative wound healing and keloid recurrence. Our goal is to determine if patients who form keloids demonstrate a higher proportion of circulating fibroblast precursors in peripheral blood samples, and if keloid specimens contain a significant concentration of surface markers responsible for local trafficking of this precursor cell. This phenomenon has been demonstrated in similar patient populations within our collaborating laboratory at UV A (R. Strieter). We hypothesize that peripheral blood samples taken before, during and after elective keloid excision will demonstrate a higher concentration of circulating fibroblast progenitor cells (CD451184), compared to case controls without keloids undergoing minor elective surgery. We anticipate that keloid specimens will demonstrate significant expression of fibroblast trafficking ligand CXCLI2, and hypoxic inducing factor (HIF-I), a marker of hypoxic insult present in states of prolonged inflammation and angiogenesis. The ability to detect the local upregulation of this pathway, and to inhibit its aggressive function will allow for proper peri-operative counseling before elective surgery and provide a novel, specific treatment to help decrease keloid recurrence.