AUGMENTING MOLECULAR REPAIR OF CELLULAR WOUNDS
Raphael C. Lee, MD, ScD, Departments of Surgery, Medicine and Organismal Biology (Biomechanics)
The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637

The noun wound is used in the medical field to refer to a disruption of tissue integrity that follows tissue trauma. Subsequent wound healing results from a complex interplay between local tissue and organis-mal responses. The term wound has only recently been used to refer to molecular level disruption of cell structures.

Cell wounding results from cell exposure to supra-physiological forces or is the consequence of action by reactive chemical agents. (Lee, 1992; McNeil, 1997) Cell wounds results from alteration of cellular molecular structure or disruption of molecular assemblies such as membranes. However, unlike tissue healing the healing of cellular wounds occurs by from neighboring biomolecular interactions. Like tissue wound healing, cellular wound healing involves accelerated processes that are constitutively expressed in routine physiologic repair of cellular structures. (McNeil, 2000) This article discusses pharmaceutical strategies that are useful for augmenting the cellular healing response while putting perspective to the work ongoing in my laboratory.