REGENERATION OF DAMAGED TISSUE

1 . A method of healing a wound including:

providing an individual having a wound, the wound including a plurality of epidermal cells located about the wound thereby forming a wound edge;

contacting the wound edge with a therapeutically effective amount of tropoelastin in conditions for enabling a sustained contact of the tropoelastin with the wound edge for a time period for enabling re-epithelialization of the wound;

wherein the re-epithelialization of the wound enables healing of the wound;

thereby healing the wound.

2 . The method of claim 1 wherein the tropoelastin is provided in the form of a gel having a viscosity or an adherence which enables sustained contact of the tropoelastin with the wound edge.

3 . The method of claim 1 wherein the tropoelastin is provided on an apical surface of a solid phase and said solid phase is placed in a wound bed so that the apical surface of the solid phase is aligned with the wound edge, thereby enabling sustained contact of the tropoelastin with the wound edge.

4 . The method of claim 3 wherein the solid phase is a dressing, stent, scaffold, bulking agent or prosthesis.

5 . The method of claim 1 wherein a solution of tropoelastin is sprayed onto a wound edge in conditions enabling evaporation of solvent from the solution, thereby enabling sustained contact of tropoelastin with the wound edge.

6 . The method of claim 1 wherein the tropoelastin is provided in an amount of about 0.1 mg to 250 mg/ml to the wound edge.

7 . The method of claim 1 wherein the tropoelastin is provided in sustained contact with the wound edge for a period of no more than about 1 to 2 weeks.

8 . The method of claim 1 wherein the tropoelastin is not contacted with the wound bed to enable sustained contact of the tropoelastin with the wound bed.