Extracorporeal shock wave (SW) has been widely employed in the treatment of many types of skeletal disorders, including acceleration of fracture healing, alleviation of tendonitis, and retardation of osteonecrosis in orthopedics medicine. An accumulating number of evidence has recently demonstrated that SW is an alternative regime for promoting regeneration of skin ulcer, ischemic cardiac tissues and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells, suggesting that SW has multiple therapeutic potential for promoting tissue repair or regeneration. We have long-term been dedicated to explore the mechanism underying SW promotion of tissue repair and found that SW induces several biological reactions, including the enhancement of angiogenesis and stem cell re-capituation in the injured tissue, thereby accelerating tissue repair. We recruit many physicians and scientists in orthopedics, plastics, cardiacs, and molecular biology to explore the molecular mechanisms underlying SW promotion of tissue repair. The Core Unit intends to be a plateform to support core equipments and technologies for all study groups of this Center.

The putative supports are described below:
1. The Core Unit plans to set up a technology plateform of SW therapy for experimental animal and in vitro cell culture model. This know-how is also anticipated to extrapolate to benchside.
2. We try to set up a plateform of in vivo tissue imaging to tracing tissue responses and angiogenesis in the course of SW promotion of tissue repair.
3. The Core Unit plans to act as centralized, standard experimental disease model or genetic modified mice for all study groups.
4. The Core Unit will support standard and advanced detection protocols of standard cell and molecular biology.
5. We will provide pharmaceuptic or genetic manipulation technology support for all study groups to explore the emerging SW-mediated biological reactions.

  We anticipate that the Core Unit will provide integrated and advanced detection technologies for molecular, cellular and tissue imaging, as well as biology response to facillate the research team to explore wide spectrum mechanistic events underlying SW enhancement of tissue repair and innovative pharmacological or genetic therapeutic potentials.