Keratinocyte Growth Factor-Based Mathematical Models of Epidermal Wound Healing

The mammalian skin is the largest organ of the body after the skeletal system and its primary function is to protect the body against the external environment. The maintenance of the skin's functionality, integrity, and strength are coordinated by specialised cells localised in three intricate layers of the skin: epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. Understanding the fundamental cause of changes in the cells in these three skin compartments, thus provides a base for progress in interpreting injuries in the skin and its healing process.Wound healing is a normal biological and dynamic process in the human skin in which many types of cells, various cytokines, and growth factors, such as KGF, act in harmony. This process starts immediately after skin injury and is completed into three distinct but highly integrated phases: an inflammatory stage, a proliferative and migration (re-epithelialization) phase, and a long reformation and remodeling phase. Therefore, in this talk, I will give a sequence of PDE models presenting the interaction between the dermis and the epidermis, in which KGF plays an active role during the re-epithelialization.