by Anne Crawford
Monash University scientists and surgeons in the Alfred Hospital’s burns unit have edged closer to their goal of growing full thickness human skin to replace the need for skin grafts with the publication of two recent research papers.
The first paper reports on the findings of a three-year clinical study into an application of the procedure called cultured epithelial autograft (CEA). Regarded as the birth of skin tissue engineering, CEA takes skin cells from the patient needing the graft and grows the upper layer of skin (epidermis) in sheets in a laboratory.
Monash University scientists and surgeons in the Alfred Hospital’s burns unit have edged closer to their goal of growing full thickness human skin to replace the need for skin grafts with the publication of two recent research papers.
The first paper reports on the findings of a three-year clinical study into an application of the procedure called cultured epithelial autograft (CEA). Regarded as the birth of skin tissue engineering, CEA takes skin cells from the patient needing the graft and grows the upper layer of skin (epidermis) in sheets in a laboratory.