Spray-on skin
Encyclopedia
Spray-on skin is a patent
ed skin
culturing treatment for burns victims, developed by scientist Marie Stoner and plastic surgeon
Dr Fiona Wood
of Perth, Western Australia
.
Wood's treatment is under ongoing development. Where previous techniques of skin culturing required 21 days to produce enough cells to cover major burns, Wood has reduced the period to five days. Through research, she found that scarring is greatly reduced if replacement skin could be provided within 10 days. Dr Wood's reported goal is "scarless woundless healing".
Wood established a company called Clinical Cell Culture (C3) in 1993 to commercialise the procedure. Her business came about after a schoolteacher arrived at Royal Perth Hospital in 1992 with petrol burns to 90% of his body. Wood turned to the emerging US-invented technology of cultured skin to save his life, working nights in a laboratory along with scientist Marie Stoner. The two women began to explore tissue engineering and moved from growing skin sheets to spraying skin cells.
As well as receiving praise from both her own patients and the media, she also attracted controversy among other burns surgeons because spray-on skin had not yet been subjected to clinical trials. A clinical trial is planned at Queen Victoria Hospital, England.
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
ed skin
Skin
-Dermis:The dermis is the layer of skin beneath the epidermis that consists of connective tissue and cushions the body from stress and strain. The dermis is tightly connected to the epidermis by a basement membrane. It also harbors many Mechanoreceptors that provide the sense of touch and heat...
culturing treatment for burns victims, developed by scientist Marie Stoner and plastic surgeon
Plastic surgery
Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the correction or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, most plastic surgery is not cosmetic: plastic surgery includes many types of reconstructive surgery, hand...
Dr Fiona Wood
Fiona Wood
Fiona Melanie Wood, AM is a British born plastic surgeon working in Perth, Western Australia. She is the director of the Royal Perth Hospital burns unit and the Western Australia Burns Service...
of Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
.
Wood's treatment is under ongoing development. Where previous techniques of skin culturing required 21 days to produce enough cells to cover major burns, Wood has reduced the period to five days. Through research, she found that scarring is greatly reduced if replacement skin could be provided within 10 days. Dr Wood's reported goal is "scarless woundless healing".
Wood established a company called Clinical Cell Culture (C3) in 1993 to commercialise the procedure. Her business came about after a schoolteacher arrived at Royal Perth Hospital in 1992 with petrol burns to 90% of his body. Wood turned to the emerging US-invented technology of cultured skin to save his life, working nights in a laboratory along with scientist Marie Stoner. The two women began to explore tissue engineering and moved from growing skin sheets to spraying skin cells.
As well as receiving praise from both her own patients and the media, she also attracted controversy among other burns surgeons because spray-on skin had not yet been subjected to clinical trials. A clinical trial is planned at Queen Victoria Hospital, England.