This lab, led by Dr. Tim King, has had a keen interest in combining molecular biology, cellular biology and biomaterials science to the practice of medicine. He has discovered that Notch, a family of transmembrane proteins that play a role in multiple cell-fate decisions, is important for the proliferation, migration and differentiation of keratinocytes. In an in vivo excisional wound model, he has shown that activation of Notch significantly improves the rate of wound healing in both normal and diabetic mice. In addition, using a novel 3-D organotypic wound model developed in his laboratory, Dr. King found that the Notch isoforms are expressed in a spatial-temporal fashion within wounds and that activation of Notch increases both the rate of wound closure as well as the epidermal thickness of the healed wound.