Provectus Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that the Company has initiated a new sponsored research program with Amina El Ayadi, PhD, Assistant Professor, Surgical Sciences Division and Jayson Jay, PhD, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Jeane B. Kempner Scholar of the Burn, Trauma, and Critical Care Research Laboratory in the Department of Surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston to characterize the effects of ProvectusÆ proprietary pharmaceutical-grade rose bengal sodium on full-thickness cutaneous wounds and during the subsequent phases of wound healing. RBS is the lead member of a class of small molecules called halogenated xanthenes that is entirely owned by Provectus. Starting from the Texas City Disaster of 1947, the deadliest industrial accident in U.S. history and one of historyÆs large non-nuclear explosions, UTMB clinicians and researchers in the Department of Surgery have developed treatments that improve the survival chances of patients with massive burns, reduce scar formation, and accelerate patient recovery.

Many novel treatments discovered by UTMB researchers have been adopted by specialist burn centers around the world. The Department of SurgeryÆs Burn, Trauma, and Critical Care Research Laboratory is equipped with an array of cutting-edge equipment and technologies that support its research activities, including a dedicated cell culture suite, confocal microscope, flow cytometer, Comprehensive Lab Animal Monitoring System and bioprinter for 3D cell culture. Drs.

El Ayadi and Jay plan to examine the safety of topically-applied, multi-dosed RBS over the wound healing periods of inflammation and cellular proliferation, determine the efficacy of RBS in a pre-clinical model of wound healing, and elucidate a spatiotemporal immune activation signature over wound healing time in a large animal model of burn and full-thickness cutaneous trauma.