Foreskin for Skin Grafts

LONDON – Imagine a foreskin the size of six soccer fields.

It sounds like a priapic nightmare, but it's about to become reality next year.

A San Diego, Calif., company called Advanced Tissue Sciences plans to manufacture human skin grown in vats on an industrial scale using tissue from circumcised babies.

From each tiny foreskin the company will generate 23,225 square metres of human skin, enough to cover the six sports fields.

It will be used in transplants, for treating burn victims and for diabetic ulcer patients.

Skin is the one type of tissue that grows and continues to proliferate all your life, ATS vice-president Gail Naughton said. That is very useful.

A tour of its laboratories reveals a host of startling biological wonders: Scientists growing heart valves made of human tissue and constructing ears out of cloned cartilage. Similar work is going on with human livers, bone, intestine walls and ligaments.

Ultimately, every structure in the body will be available for us to re-create, company scientist Joe Vacante said.

But skin production leads the field, thanks to scientists who have overcome a basic problem: how to grow tissue cells.

In the past, attempts at cultivation were made, unsuccessfully, on flat, two-dimensional surfaces.

Only recently did researchers stumble on the answer: three- dimensional scaffolds on which cells can adhere.

This is how ATS is growing its foreskins. Cells are separated, dissolved, and the solution passed over lattices of biodegradable meshes – to which the skin adheres.

Nutrients and chemicals are added to stimulate growth, producing a patch of skin measuring 10 by 15 centimetres that is frozen and stored for use by surgeons.

The company expects to create two major businesses from such skin patches.

The first will treat foot ulcers for diabetics, which can develop into large open wounds, in turn leading to gangrene and amputations.

Highly encouraging success rates were reported in clinical trials. Not only does the dermal patch adhere to the wound, but the patient's own epidermis closes over to complete the healing.

The company expects to get full approval for its skin pieces, called Dermografts, next year.

There are about 400,000 diabetic ulcer patients in the United States, and roughly the same number in Europe, said Marie Burke, ATS director of corporate communications. That should generate a $2 billion business.

The second venture will use human skin patches to treat fire victims.

Treatment with dermal patches should provide the answer, the company says, providing protection against infection, without rejection. The pieces are removed once the patient's own skin is ready for transplant.

The technique has already notched up some noticeable successes – including that of 15-year-old Benjamin Paraiso, who set fire to himself while making a home-made bomb from a bottle of gasoline and a firecracker.

He suffered massive third-degree burns and, because local hospitals had run out of cadaver skin, might have died had Dermograft transplants not been available. Benjamin has now recovered.

The Circumcision Information and Resource Pages are a not-for-profit educational resource and library. IntactiWiki hosts this website but is not responsible for the content of this site. CIRP makes documents available without charge, for informational purposes only. The contents of this site are not intended to replace the professional medical or legal advice of a licensed practitioner.

  © CIRP.org 1996-2024 | Filetree | Please visit our sponsor and host:  IntactiWiki.