Doctors are faced with limited choices when it comes to damaged or burned skin. People with severe burns face years of skin grafts and rehabilitation that can be agonizing. Worse, doctors are limited by the amount of skin a person has available to be taken and grafted onto other areas — a process that risks infection and disfiguration. Restoring feeling to grafted skin is touch and go as well.
But new advances in science — including skin grown in the lab — will make skin grafting a thing of the past.
Lab-grown skin gets its start from your own skin — a minute amount (via biopsy) is used to grow what you need — in a controlled environment on a matrix material that looks like tiny lattice frames. The skin includes all layers and stem cells as well.
One breakthrough in skin regeneration is through 3D "bioprinters" — which work by adding successive layers that build on each other guided by capable software. The "layers" are created using genetic material from your own body. The "printing" process works much in the same way 3D printing currently works.
Think of a regular printer that uses various inks to generate a photographic image. Instead of inks and flat paper, sprayer jets build layers using whatever materials technicians add (plastics, metals, etc.). 3D "bioprinting" —the term used to describe organic creations — works the very same way, though biological materials are loaded into the supply cartridges in lieu of plastics and other materials.
Scientists have been laser-focused on coming up with a solution for skin. It's easy to see why — skin, our largest organ, is the body's first line of defense, and it's a thin line — only up to 4 mm thick. And with the roughly 450,000 burn cases each year, according to the American Burn Association, the need is urgent.
Your body is completely covered with skin of course, and that's a lot of area exposed to a lot of damage. Doctors and researchers are hard at work in a number of different areas to accomplish skin regeneration.
One company, RenovaCare, is experimenting with seeding a burn with your own skin stem cells. It has developed a precision instrument — dubbed a SkinGun — to spread the delicate stem cells.
Despite positive testing, however, the company and experts in the field say it may take years for the product to reach the patient. “Our work in Pittsburgh on the pre-product procedure really shows only good results, with now 47 patient treatments at UPMC Mercy Hospital Burn and Trauma Units,” Dr. Jörg Gerlach, lead author of the system’s study report and a professor in the department of surgery at the University of Pittsburgh said.
John Stetson, vice president and chief financial officer for PolarityTE, a company at the forefront of skin regeneration, says that burns will be a chief focus for his company's bleeding-edge technology. PolarityTE's proprietary advances in skin regeneration will "immediately take over the burn and wound care market," he told Newsmax. "There's a lack of new advances and technology to treat grievous wounds such as these that always leave scars and pain in their wake, currently."
Stetson says the process used now to treat burn victims is both outdated and potentially dangerous. "Skin grafting techniques have been around for 100 years. Skin is shaved off from other parts of the body and attached to the burn wound. Now there are two areas for scarring and possible infections."
"What we introduce is clean skin . . . healthy skin, to cover all of those areas. We are fully autologous . . . meaning we create skin from an individual's own cells. No outside sources are used, which mitigates rejection. As a result, hospital stays are greatly reduced."
PolarityTE sees a crucial military need with the ever-present dangers of improvised explosive devices, suicide bombers, and artillery blasts that our troops brave. "We want to develop a system where each soldier provides us with a skin biopsy before being deployed. If we can establish a bank ahead of time, we will be that much more prepared in the event of a tragedy requiring skin repair." The company relies on a small amount of skin taken from a patient during a biopsy. That sample regenerates on "platform" technology.
PolarityTE is currently in a testing phase but expects to be fully operational as early as 2018.
Very soon doctors will have a new weapon in their arsenal — the ability to recreate your very own skin. And that's exciting news to the doctors and caretakers of burn victims everywhere, who have been frustrated by the lack of advancements in the field for decades.
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