BackgroundTo accelerate the healing of diabetic wounds, various kinds of growth factors have been employed. It is the short half-life of administered growth factors in hostile wound beds that have limited wide-spread clinical usage. To overcome this limitation, growth factor gene therapy could be an attractive alternative rather than direct application of factors onto the wound beds. We administered two growth factor DNAs, epidermal growth factor (EGF) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) into a cutaneous wound on diabetic mice. We compared the different characteristics of the healing wounds.MethodsStreptozotocin was injected intraperitoneally to induce diabetes into C57BL/6J mice. The ultrasound micro-bubble destruction method with SonoVue as a bubbling agent was used for non-viral gene delivery of EGF828 and VEGF165 DNAs. Each gene was modified for increasing efficacy as FRM-EGF828 or minicircle VEGF165. The degree of neoangiogenesis was assessed using qualitative laser Doppler flowmetry. We compared wound size and histological findings of the skin wounds in each group.ResultsIn both groups, accelerated wound closure was observed in the mice receiving gene therapy compared with non treated diabetic control mice. Blood flow detected by laser doppler flowmetry was better in the VEGF group than in the EGF group. Wound healing rates and histological findings were more accelerated in the EGF gene therapy group than the VEGF group, but were not statistically significant.ConclusionBoth non-viral EGF and VEGF gene therapy administrations could improve the speed and quality of skin wound healing. However, the detailed histological characteristics of the healing wounds were different.

We examine how firms' prepandemic investments in human capital influence their use of workforce reductions and layoffs (hereafter, workforce reductions) as a response to financial pressures during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. We contend that workforce reductions must be examined in the context of firms' broader financial and resource orchestration environments. First, we suggest that firms' relative exposure to pandemic financial pressures (PFPs) will determine their need to cut costs during the pandemic. Second, we argue that a firm's prior investments in employees' human capital will reduce the attractiveness of workforce reductions as a cost-cutting response to PFPs, as human capital investment (HCI) increases the value of employees' knowledge, skills, and abilities and motivation, thus inducing firms to seek alternative measures to reduce costs. We then argue that the attenuating influence of HCI on the effect of PFPs on workforce reductions will be stronger when HCI is matched with greater investments in physical capital, as employees' human capital will create more value-and will translate to a bigger loss following employee departures-in such circumstances. We demonstrate support for our hypotheses in a sample of 1,364 U.S. banks using data from quarterly Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reports, news articles, and Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications (WARN) Act filings through the fourth quarter of 2020. We discuss implications for our understanding of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on organizations and employees and for research on resource orchestration and human capital.

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