Spray-on Skin?
Doctor Anthony Atala
War is perhaps on the darkest hours in any society, however it has had a historical impact on medical research. Blood transfusions and the antibiotic penicillin are all products of wartime medical science. Now, regenerative medicine advancements are anticipated to be associated with wartime medical science in the Iraq war.
Towards the end of April, Lt. General Eric Schoomaker, the surgeon general of the US army, announced that $85 million of government funding would be put towards new medical research. Now, more specifics are known about the intention of this funding; it’s going to be used for regenerative medical research. Schoomaker commented to the media that “We’re embarking on a new generation of research that is going to redefine Army and military medicine.”
Regenerative medicine deals with restoring severely injured or lost body parts. Wake Forest’s University for Regenerative Medicine strives to develop the technology needed to recreate human body parts, such as kidneys, bones, and hearts, so that they can function in an actual human body- and they’re succeeding. However, you won’t hear of any of their procedures being performed in hospitals as of now, most of their studies are only in the phase of animal testing. With this new funding, the university’s director, Anthony Atala, hopes to advance this research more quickly.
One of the areas that is being tested on humans is the use of regenerative skin. By taking healthy skin stem cells from a burn victim and spraying them in a fine mist onto the damaged area, new skin is able to grow and repair the damaged area within two to six weeks. Because the stem cells came from the burn victim, the new skin develops naturally and has the same pigmentation as the victims other skin. This procedure has been tried on eight burn victims in Germany with very successful results.
Regenerative skin particularly interests the army due to the fact that soldiers with skin damage, such as burn victims, have a very high suicide rate. In fact, soldiers with burns or other skin damage on their face have the highest suicide rate of any other injury in the army. Traditional methods of treating burn victims involve painful skin transplants and can take months to complete. This new procedure could dramatically reduce the recovery time and the appearance of scars.
