Instructional PowerPoint presentations for cutaneous wound healing and tissue response to sutures

Wound healing is an intricate process involving the interaction of cells and molecules, resulting in a complex series of events that change the morphology and characteristics of the wounded area. Interactive animations are useful for illustrating challenging concepts, helping students learn and retain new material. Instructional PowerPoint presentations describing the basic elements of cutaneous wound healing and the response of cutaneous tissue to sutures were developed by seven biomedical engineering students at Duke University. "Cutaneous Wound Healing.ppt" is an interactive presentation reviewing the four phases of wound healing (hemostasis, inflammation, repair, and remodeling) as well as the major molecular and cellular mechanisms that comprise these processes for cutaneous tissue. "Tissue Response to Sutures.ppt" is an interactive presentation that uses sutures to illustrate the foreign body response to biomaterials in cutaneous tissue. The tissue response program reviews the basics of suturing, common suture materials, and the tissue, cellular, and molecular responses to absorbable and nonabsorbable sutures. This manuscript provides a brief overview of the programs that are freely available on the Duke Center for Biomolecular and Tissue Engineering web site at http://bte.egr.duke.edu.