Project summary
Diabetic foot ulcers can have a huge impact on people’s lives, and, in the most serious cases, infections can put people at risk of life-altering amputations. Dr Wilkinson wants to understand how bacteria cause infections and slow healing in foot ulcers in people with type 2 diabetes. This will help to develop new treatments that could protect people with diabetes against amputations.
Background to research
A quarter of people living with diabetes will experience a foot ulcer in their lifetime. They are painful, can make people feel isolated, and can lead to amputation. This can happen when bacterial infections prevent foot ulcers from healing.
Dr Holly Wilkinson’s research has shown that some types of bacteria can prevent healing by causing cells in foot ulcers to become ‘zombie-like’. Zombie cells don’t die off as they should, and they ‘infect’ surrounding cells too. But we’re not sure exactly how bacteria cause this. Now, Dr Wilkinson wants to find out more about how to help make new treatments that speed up healing and prevent amputations.
Research aims
Dr Wilkinson wants to understand how bacteria in foot ulcers cause cells to become ‘zombie-like’. She’ll also identify which bacteria species are ‘bad’ and prevent healing.
Dr Wilkinson will take bacteria from diabetic foot ulcer samples. She’ll use cutting-edge methods to identify each bacteria species and understand how they cause a build-up of zombie cells.
She’ll take ‘bad’ bacteria from ulcers that haven’t healed, and ‘good’ bacteria from healed ulcers, and place them in tiny skin wounds. Then Dr Wilkinson will compare the number of zombie cells in each wound and how well they have healed.
After this, she’ll test different drugs in cells, then human skin, and finally in mice with diabetes, to see whether they can prevent zombie cells and poor healing. These findings will help her progress to clinical trials, which test her treatments in people living with diabetes and foot ulcers.
Potential benefit to people with diabetes
Currently, there are no effective drug treatments which help diabetic foot ulcers heal and reduce the risk of amputations. Dr Wilkinson’s research could lead to new treatments which speed up ulcer healing and protect people with diabetes from life-changing amputations. Knowing which specific bacteria species are responsible for slow healing will help doctors identify those most at risk of developing serious ulcers so they can receive timely, preventative treatments.
