the czd/polynovo opportunity

Hi All

http://themixuab.blogspot.com.au/2013/06/human-body-as-skin-growing-factory.html

A few paragraphs, however a complete read is worth it.

2:21 Burns pose a particular challenge when it comes to repairing skin, especially when all layers of skin (dermis, epidermis, etc.) have been destroyed. This requires surgeons to borrow skin from the non-burned areas. They can then use bioengineering techniques to regrow skin, but currently technologies do so slowly. When burns cover the majority of the patient's body, it is a challenge to regrow enough skin fast enough to avoid scarring.

3:22 According to Dr. Thomas, there is no current treatment option that efficiently and quickly makes available large amounts of replacement skin. Those that are available cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, require multiple procedures and don't work for all patients.

3:45 One product on the market now called the cultured epidermal autograph is grown from a patient's own skin cells by the biotech company Genzyme. From 2 postage stamp-sized biopsies, the company says it can grow enough skin to cover a patient’s entire body, but it may cost $600,000, said Dr. Thomas. What the field needs is inexpensive replacement skin that you could take off a shelf and apply.

5:10 Many current research efforts seek to create good artificial skin, but no one product has gelled yet. Today's attempts are not durable enough, he said, and need to be replaced by something that can be shipped and stored without losing its useful properties.

6:48 Some of the frontiers in artificial skin research include polymers that can knit themselves the way real skin does, but nothing to date does the job as well as the body itself The problem is large gaps in skin, which scar instead of knit."

I expect when the CZD/Polynovo trials with burns victims start Dr Thomas and UAB school of medicine will be one of the international trial sites

http://www.uab.edu/medicine/home/


This company is mentioned in the article and the right scaffold might help them, alternatively Polynovo and Dr Greenwood probably have their own solution in mind!

http://www.epicel.com/hcp/about/Epicel.aspx

Have a good week