Australia plans living skin replacement for burn victims

AUSTRALIAN scientists are working towards creating a living, full-thickness replacement skin for burns victims and hope to begin animal trials later this year.

Research is under way to reproduce fully-functioning skin for transplant which could transform the lives of those left with serious burn injuries, a spokeswoman for the Sydney Burns Foundation said yesterday.

Burns victims are currently treated with skin grafts – pieces of their own skin taken from unharmed parts of their body – or with small sheets of skin grown in a laboratory using their skin cells.

But laboratories can only grow epidermis – the thin outer layer of skin – and this can cannot stretch, perspire, grow hair, or have normal feeling or movement.

Researchers at the Sydney Burns Foundation, a collaboration between the University of Sydney and Concord Hospital, hope to counter this problem by developing a full-thickness, living skin to be transplanted to burns victims.

Sydney University Professor Peter Maitz said extensive testing was under way to establish base data for testing on animals in the near future.

“Burns injury is one of the most severe and disabling traumas a person can sustain,” Maitz said.