Luisa DiPietro, DDS, PhD, has joined the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Dentistry Director of the Center for Wound Repair and Tissue Regeneration and as a Professor of Periodontics.
Dr. DiPietro’s interests in wound healing focus on the effects of aging and inflammation on scarring during healing. Recently, she has been investigating critical differences in inflammation and angiogenesis between oral versus cutaneous wounds that ultimately result in rapid, nonscarring healing in mucosa.
She has served on more than 30 National Institutes of Health review panels, and as Chair of the Dental and Craniofacial Sciences Study Section from 2002 to 2004. Dr. DiPietro served as the Program Co-Chair for the Wound Healing Society for the 2005 Annual Meeting. She also is a member of the Editorial Board of Wound Repair and Regeneration, and has been active in the American Association for Investigative Pathology. She serves on the National Scientific Advisory Council of the America Federation for Aging Research and the Scientific Advisory Board for the Schweppe Foundation.
Dr. DiPietro received her PhD in immunology and DDS from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Given the already strong program in wound repair at the College of Dentistry, I’m very excited to be joining this new initiative,” Dr. DiPietro said. “The College is an ideal place to achieve our goal of building a nationally recognized, interdisciplinary program that will break new ground in the field of tissue repair. Our eventual target is the development of novel therapeutics that will promote healing while reducing scar formation.”
Dr. DiPietro feels that her lab, working in conjunction with the lab of Dr. Phillip Marucha, Head of the Department of Periodontics, “along with the addition of young junior faculty will provide an exceptionally strong synergistic research environment in the field of wound healing,” she concluded. “This potential for collaborative interaction was a key factor in my decision to move to UIC.”