Hi Moosey/Jev and all Polynovians, A few thoughts on the...

Hi Moosey/Jev and all Polynovians,

A few thoughts on the composite cultured skin (ccs) by Prof Greenwood and the Monash trials.

As I understand Prof Greenwoods process with a burn:   Cut out the burn, install BTM, take 10x10cm of unburnt skin to culture. Take the healthy skin to the lab and separate cells for further growing. Grab a thin piece of the foam of the BTM (no covering layer, yes another Polynovo market for foam!) and grow a dermis. 7 days later add cells on top to grow an epidermis. This leaves a full thickness skin to be placed on the wound to replace the current skin graft. In terms of skin volume it can currently be cultured on 40 pieces of foam 25x25cm. This is all composed of the patients own cells so no issues of rejection or need for immune suppression. This has been done in pigs successfully. Trials by others in the past have used only cultured epidermis (CEA), which universally fails when put onto wounds. My understanding is that CCS is now quite close to human trials... sensational!

Monash trials: As I understand this they are trying to culture a "universal" skin which equivalent to CCS...  but not with cells of the patient. This leaves issues such as rejection, the need for long term immune suppression to be sorted out (a considerable issue). Hope that helps.

Secondly. A new publication: http://publishing.rcseng.ac.uk/doi/abs/10.1308/rcsann.2017.0110

Gav