Question: how could your research help on the rest of the body?

Vicky Young answered on 10 Mar 2012:

Internal scars (what we call fibrosis or adhesions) are complications caused by infections, operations, repeated injuries etc. This can be very painful and lead to the organs not functioning properly. It costs over £50million a year to treat this complication and there is no medication which can currently stop this fibrosis forming.

Its a small step in a giant picture but it if we can find out why the ovary heals differently then maybe we can use this knowledge to design new medication to prevent the fibrosis forming.

It would take a long long time for this to happen and usually this research will be combined with other research from scientists around the world so that we can get a complete picture of whats happening. Even then a medication would have to be designed and tested in clinical trials before anyone could benefit.

But eventually this research could lead to a treatment which would stop fibrosis forming and this could be used throughout the body in places where this can happen such as the abdominal cavity.