Scar Free Update Event 2021 - Today at 1630

The Scar Free Foundation Annual Update Event 2021 will offer you a unique insight into the problems of scarring and learn about the pioneering research we are funding to achieve our Scar Free mission.

Professor Johnathan Sandy

About Scarring : Genetics

Professor Sandy will explain what a scar is and what role genetics play. Professor Sandy will help us to understand this by explaining the work the Foundation has funded at The Cleft Collective. The Collective has recruited over 3,000 children born with cleft and their families, the genetic information we now have not only answers long standing unknowns around Cleft Lip and Cleft Palate, but can also be used to help unlock the unknown's around scarring in general.

Jonathan Sandy is an Emeritus Professor in Orthodontics and was the inaugural Dean of the Health Sciences Faculty at the University of Bristol from 2014 -2019. Prior to that he was head of the Dental School (2007-2014). He has been active in research for cleft lip and palate across the United Kingdom since the early 1990’s. He led a nationwide study on outcomes for children born with a unilateral cleft lip and/or palate. That study led to a report by the clinical standards advisory group from which all recommendations were implemented, leading to centralisation of primary surgery for cleft in the United Kingdom and an opportunity to build a research network with the clinical cleft teams. With funding from the Scar Free Foundation he led the ambitious Cleft Collective study which has developed a birth and five year old cohort to answer three questions; what caused this? what is the best treatment? and what will life be like for my child? The study is now providing information on cleft lip and palate that has changed thinking about the condition and is building a resource that is unlikely to be matched outside of the United Kingdom.

Liam Soffe

Living With Scarring

Scarring changes everything. It’s part of our daily lives and has a lifelong impact on not just Elizabeth, but her three siblings and all of her family and friends.

On 29th May 2014 Liam and Sinead's youngest little girl, six-month old baby Elizabeth, survived a fire at their home in Qatar. Elizabeth was severely burnt all over her body. She lost most of her fingers, part of her nose and one of her ears. They relocated back to the UK, where Elizabeth spent the next six-months of her life in intensive care. For the rest of her life, Elizabeth will have ongoing treatment, including regular operations and physiotherapy due to her scarring. Liam, Sinead, Elizabeth and all of Elizabeth's siblings have their own lived experience story, which remains at the heart of everything that we do.

Professor Janet M Lord, University of Birmingham

About Scarring : Research

Professor Lord will explain how the different cells that come in to a wound site influence the rate at which healing occurs but can also dictate the degree of scarring. She will describe her research on laser therapy for established scars and how this tries to reset the healing process and reduce scarring.

Janet Lord is Professor of Immune Cell Biology at Birmingham University. Her primary research focus is in the effect of ageing upon immune function and how this limits the ability of older adults to resolve inflammation and predisposes them to chronic inflammatory disease such as Rheumatoid arthritis. More recently she has begun to research the inflammatory response to major trauma and burns, how this varies with age and influences patient outcomes such as scarring. In 2013 she was awarded the Lord Cohen of Birkenhead medal for her outstanding research in human ageing by the British Society for Research in to Ageing. She was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2015.