Artificial Skin Breakthrough

Nupur Shridhar

First, a note concerning my previous blogs: I had previously recommended that scientists avoid using stem and fetal cells to avoid a moral debate and instead find some way to create those cells in a lab. Imagine my happiness when I discovered that scientists have only recently (and very recently, this article is published in the 20 November 2007 edition of SCIENCE magazine) discovered a way to turn skin cells into stem cells. For more details see here: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2007/1120/1 or go get the article and read it.
Also here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/11/20/stem.cell.reax/index.html

In continuing with my theme of artificial cells that mimic the structure and function of natural cells, this article talks of the artificial skin cells created by British researchers in June of this year. This is the first successful trial involving laboratory-made living human skin that was fully and consistently integrated into the human body. This is a new development in artificial skins cells, since previously, skin substitutes in the past biodegraded too quickly in situ. The new skin, ICX-SKN, is created from a matrix produced by the same skin cells that create new tissue in the body. Thus, the artificial skin cells were designed with a template that was created by looking at the way the body naturally functions.

Current trials have shown that the new skin was able to close and heal a wound site in just 28 days. If artificial skins can become easily produced and prove to be just as effective as skin grafts, then doctors and surgeons would no longer have to worry about a dearth of viable skin cells for transplantation or grafting. Theoretically, there could be an endless supply of skin cells for every burn victim and plastic surgery patient - without risk of rejection (the cells wouldn't trigger an immune response) and a reduced risk of infection. So what's next? The article states that researchers now hope to create a whole range of cell-based implants that can fully regenerate lost tissue, not just help wound sites heal.

This clinical breakthrough has also inspired me to continuing working towards my goal of perhaps one day becoming a biomedical researcher or engineer. Perhaps "inspire" is too strong a word - too trite, too stereotypical. Rather, it had convinced me that investing in science pays off. Sometimes, as it was in this case, a researcher does not have to create a new mechanism or discover a new drug or procedure. Simply imitating the body's amazing ability to heal itself is enough.

The way in which these scientists approached creating an artificial skin cell (by looking at the matrix created when new cells are formed) reminds me of the article read earlier in class that outlined some of the cases where patients who had terminal cancer had miraculous recoveries. One line from the article that I remember rather distinctly stated that treatments from cancer need to do what the body did in those patients who recovered: it targeted the cancer cells with absolutely no side effects, and no current treatment, from surgery to chemotherapy, is as effective and efficient as the human body. In the case of patients who need skin grafts, then, who have suffered burns that are so severe that their bodies' natural mechanism of healing has been damaged, it makes sense to use artificial skin cells that would work the way their own cells would have had they not been damaged.

I am a student who often thinks about the moral consequences of any scientific discovery. Yet the use of artificial skin cells does not seem to offend anyone or cross any line. All burn victims deserve care, and if we can generate their cure in a test tube instead of surgically taking it from another part of their body, then we, as a community, should do so. Creating artificial skin cells was a result of working diligently, thinking creatively, and doing right. Hopefully, it will soon become common medical practice and affect thousands of people worldwide.