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.
Photochemical Sealing of Peripheral Neurorrhaphy
Jonathan Winograd MD
2006
Massachusetts General Hospital
Basic Research Grant
Peripheral Nerve
The past 30 years have provided us with a great deal of experimental data on neuroscientific elements of nerve repair. Unfortunately this has not translated into improved clinical outcomes. We are still in search of the ideal method of nerve repair. Photochemical tissue bonding is an exciting new method of tissue adhesion that uses visible laser light to create bonds between tissue surfaces that have been pretreated with a photosensitizing dye. This innovative use of laser technology has the potential to revolutionize many aspects of microsurgery. In this project we will combine photochemical technology with the previously described technique of nerve wrapping in an attempt to enhance peripheral nerve regeneration by reducing scar formation at the repair site. The objects of this study are: (1) To determine if photochemical sealing of the peripheral nerve repair site can improve functional recovery following nerve injury and repair (2) To determine if natural or bioengineered nerve wrapping materials are more effective in enhancing peripheral nerve regeneration.
Dr. Winograd is a reconstructive plastic surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital. He completed both his general and plastic surgery training at Johns Hopkins Hospital including a two year research fellowship in the Plastic Surgery Research Laboratory. He then went on to do an additional year of fellowship training in Hand and Microsurgery at Washington University in Saint Louis in the Division of Plastic Surgery. His research focus has been the improvement of outcomes following microsurgical repair of peripheral nerve injuries. With grant support from the Plastic Surgery Foundation and ASPS, as well as the Academic Scholar program of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons, he has developed a translational research program which investigates the use of photochemical tissue bonding to decrease scarring at neurorrhaphy sites and better isolate the regenerative environment necessary to promote optimal neural regeneration. He is currently funded by the Department of Defense to further investigate the benefits of this technique combined with large gap peripheral nerve injuries and nerve grafting. Most recently, with the current grant support from PSF, the photochemical tissue bonding is being used to improve microsurgical repair of blood vessels, with the added implementation of a dissolvable glass stent to aid in the technical performance and stabilization of the anastomosis.