spray gun that heals severe burns in days created

Raging_Ninja

I hope this is the right place to put this.

Here's a youtube video of a National Geographic clip - be warned it contains images of severe 2nd degree burns on a guy's arm, and another guy who has a wound on his hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y5H9Sasq5U

Basically a guy burned his arm severely, and doctors used the spray gun to place skin stem cells onto the wound, which fosters healing and growth of new skin. It happened on Friday, and on Monday it was completely healed.

Article from the Escapist:

Magic Gun Sprays Skin Cells to Heal Burns Almost Instantly
Greg Tito | 3 Feb 2011 8:59 pm

The future is here with a new experimental process that sprays the victim's skin cells onto burns to heal them in days instead of months.

It's called a "skin cell gun" by Jorg C. Gerlach of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. His team has been working on the process for a long time and just now has entered the experimental phase using real human burn victims. First, the scientists harvest healthy skin cells from unharmed portions of the victim's bodies and isolate the stem cells in order to put them in a water solution. Gerlach's gun then sprays those cells directly onto the burn wound as if painting a house. The process of taking the sample, isolating the cells and then spraying them on the wound takes only 1.5 hours, and results in drastically quickening the healing process for burn victims. In the following video from National Geographic, the example patient is Matt Urum, a state trooper from Pennsylvania who suffered 2nd degree burns when someone threw a cup of gasoline on a bonfire. He was treated on a Friday and by Monday his skin was completely healed."It looked like something you'd see in Star Wars," Urum said of the skin cell gun.

I'm inclined to agree. This technology seems like it could save hundreds of lives and ease the suffering of thousands of people subjected to painful and disfiguring burns. So far over 12 burn victims have been successfully treated using the skin gun, and more tests and studies will be conducted before it sees wide usage in our hospitals. But if the Urum's case is any indication, it will be nothing short of amazing.

Famed science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke's third law states that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Therefore, the skin cell gun is magical.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/107529-Magic-Gun-Sprays-Skin-Cells-to-Heal-Burns-Almost-Instantly

This is quite frankly awesome. I'm acquainted with a couple of guys who do research in this field and I find it quite fascinating.

Sitric

Thank you very much for this OP, i'm actually reading skin grafting at the moment. Had never heard of this technique. And the GF says boards is a waste of time!

Chapter 76, (scroll down to 1298) here has more details and doesn't overstate the case the way the tv piece does. Burns can be complicated as hell.

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=BG5paiwd5hgC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=J%C3%B6rg+Gerlach+burn&ots=b-wU0ys8jc&sig=8Tj7qje4id6r54EXBhRr9jhIhRI#v=onepage&q=J%C3%B6rg%20Gerlach%20burn&f=true

The integra covers he mentions are superb but not as good as porcine xenograft covers. Cheaper though and can have really good cosmetic results.

The patent for the perfusion technique in fig 76.7 is:
http://www.google.com/patents?hl=en&lr=&vid=USPATAPP10866294&id=Vp6VAAAAEBAJ&oi=fnd&dq=J%C3%B6rg+Gerlach+burn&printsec=abstract#v=onepage&q&f=false

As an aside to this, does anyone know if, when doing a mesh graft, you can combine a skin flap with a mesh technique? ie "mesh the flap" to increase surface area? I think you can do this with mucous membrane flaps but don't know about skin.

@ OP: Do you know the guys in Berlin?