Back to Project Library

Injuries pose a significant safety issue in daily life. Annually, unintentional injuries cause approximately 200,000 deaths in the U.S. and affect around 11 million people in the world. The risks of open wounds come from bacterial infection and over-bleeding, causing inflammatory reactions and dilution of healing factors. Current debridement methods that remove damaged tissues from the wound site are unsuitable for large or severely infected wounds, and the lack of healing factors extends the wound exposure. Fibrin and fibronectin, proteins naturally found in the human body, are critical in the wound healing process. Fibrin supports clot formation and cell migration, while fibronectin stimulates angiogenesis, enhances the integrity of the extracellular matrix (ECM), and recruits macrophages to clean the wound site. Unlike fibronectin which is directly encoded by a gene, thrombin is needed to cleave fibrinogen to form fibrin monomers which then polymerize. Our project aims to establish a system that simultaneously produces fibronectin, fibrin, and thrombin, proteins essential for wound healing. The BL21 (DE3) strain of Escherichia coli functions as the chassis for a genetically engineered plasmid that possesses the genes encoding fibronectin, fibrinogen, and thrombin. This project will enhance advanced wound care by enabling the stable production of key wound healing proteins and advancing fibrin cleavage and polymerization, significantly lowering death rates and setting a new standard in medical innovation.

Wound Healing Enhancement Using Recombinant Extracellular Matrix Proteins Produced by Escherichia coli

School

Western Reserve Academy
Hudson, OH

BioBuilderClub Season

2024-2025 Season

Category

Resources

BBC LT_Fibroconnexus_Western Reserve Academy_2025

BBC Poster_Fibroconnexus_Western Reserve Academy_2025

BBC_Abstract_Fibroconnexus_Western Reserve Academy_2025

BBC_LT_Audio_Fibroconnexus_Western Reserve Academy_2025

WRA Fibroconnexus BioTreks Article

Fibroconnexus_Western Reserve Academy_BBC_2025