Wounds represent a major global health challenge which put much economic, financial, and social stress on health institutions, care-givers, patients, and their families. The occurrence of various forms of wounds such as chronic and acute wounds, pressure ulcers, venous stasis ulcers, and diabetic ulcers has increased over the years in most countries especially the developed countries. Chronic wounds are normally characterized by intense pain, infection, loss of function, loss of mobility, amputations, and huge financial cost as well as death in some cases. With an increase in the prevalence of wounds in almost every country, there has been corresponding increase in the cost of treatment and management of these wounds with significant socioeconomic consequences. Due to this high socioeconomic burden including the high cost of orthodox medicines, most patients especially those in developing countries resort to traditional medicines which are believed to be readily available, cheap, and of low toxicity for management of wounds, ulcers, and other diseases. Hence there is an increase in the search for potent but cost-effective wound healing agents from nature.

Medicinal plants have been used in the management of various diseases since ancient time. It is estimated that about 70 to 80% of the world’s population depend on medicines of plant origin. The use of medicinal plants in the management of acute and chronic wounds is common in most traditional medicine practices in the world. Based on this, many plants in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world have been screened for their wound healing activity. Yet there still remain a lot of medicinal plants to be screened in the search for newer, efficacious, and cost-effective wound healing agents.

This special issue aims at studies on the current trends for managing wounds and associated complications, newer natural products including animal products (honey, propolis, bacteriophage, maggots, leeches, etc.), and/or isolated compounds possessing wound healing activity. Hence, we would like to specially invite researchers to contribute novel primary research articles including preclinical and clinical studies as well as review articles in this field. We envisage that this special issue will extend the frontiers of knowledge and serve as the foundation for future research studies into wounds.

Potential topics include but are not limited to the following:

• In vivo and in vitro wound healing activity of natural products including animal products and/or isolated compounds
• Isolation and characterization of compounds from natural products with wound healing activity
• Elucidation of mechanism(s) of action of natural products and/or isolated compounds used in the treatment of wounds
• Identification of molecular targets for natural products including animal products and/or isolated compounds in treatment of wounds
• Synergistic activity of natural products including animal products and/or isolated compounds including their potential influence on conventional therapeutic approaches
• Evaluation of the efficacy and safety of natural products including animal products and/or isolated compounds possessing wound healing activity using in vitro and/or in vivo models
• Clinical trials on natural agents for wound treatment