New "Skin Gun" Sprays Skin Cells to Quickly Heal Burns

by Alex A. Kecskes

Finally, a healthcare technological breakthrough for victims who have suffered severe skin injuries. It's called a "skin cell gun," or skin gun for short, and it literally sprays new skin onto burn areas with almost miraculous results.

Developed by Jorg C. Gerlach of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the skin gun works by harvesting healthy skin cells from uninjured areas of a victim's body, isolating the stem cells and placing then in an aqueous solution. The solution is then simply sprayed onto the burn wound. The whole process from skin sample to spraying new skin cells onto the wound takes just 90 minutes. And healing times are no less impressive—from 2nd degree burn to skin that's completely healed in days, instead of weeks or months.

Current methods of treating burns usually involve painful, time consuming skin grafts. With this method, skin sections are taken from uninjured areas of a burn victim's body, or more recently, growing sheets of skin artificially, then grafting them over the burn. The grafts often take weeks and sometimes months to heal. While recovering, patients can develop serious infections, since the body's first line of defense (the skin) has been seriously compromised.

While scientists have been able to regenerate human skin for some time now, it typically takes two to three weeks to produce fragile sheets of skin. When the new skin is grafted on, secretions from underneath often create blisters that can damage the new skin.

The new life-saving skin gun promises to revolutionize the treatment of severe burns, easing the suffering of thousands every year.

Alex A. Kecskes has written hundreds of published articles on health/fitness, "green" issues, TV/film entertainment, restaurant reviews and many other topics. As a former Andy/Belding/One Show ad agency copywriter, he also writes web content, ads, brochures, sales letters, mailers and scripts for national B2B and B2C clients. Please see more of his blogs and view additional job postings on Beyond.com.