Healing The Wounds Of War: Novel Phytochemical Agent Enhances, Improves Process Of Wound Healing

Dr. Radha Maheshwari, professor of Pathology at USU, along with Anuj Sharma, graduate student and other colleagues, reported a novel compound Picroliv obtained from the roots of a plant Picrorhiza kurrooa enhances the rate of wound healing by principally enhancing the restoration of the blood supply to the damaged tissue.

Previous work from Dr. Maheshwari’s laboratory has shown that Picroliv also protects from the injuries induced by hypoxia and reoxygenation and upreulates the expression pf vascular endothelial growth factor in human umbilical vein endothelial cells and of insulin-like growth factor in rats during hypoxia.

These findings suggest that Picroliv could be developed as a therapeutic angiogenic agent for the restoration of the blood supply in diseases involving inadequate blood supply such as limb ischemia, ischemic myocardium and wound healing.

This work supported by funding from National Institutes of Health has important implications in understanding the underlying process important for wound healing and developing agents that can enhance these processes. Wounds and their treatment remain a major area of research for military combat causality and civilian traumatic injuries and this research identifies a potential therapeutic compound that may be developed for treatment of wounds.

The journal article was published in the March 2007 edition of the Journal Planta Medica.