The Star Trek-like machine is in the early stages of development, but the team hope it will one day provide a way to treat patients whose burn injuries are too extensive to permit skin grafts.
Researcher professor Axel Günther said: “Skin grafts, where the damaged tissue is removed and replaced with skin taken from another area of the patient’s body, are a standard treatment for serious burns. However, in cases where a patient has extensive full thickness burns - which destroy both the upper and lower layers of the skin - there is not always sufficient healthy skin left to use.”
“While there are alternatives - including scaffolds using bovine collagen or engineered skin substitutes grown in vitro - none are ideal,” he continued. “Collagen scaffolds rely on tissues and cells surrounding the wound to fully heal, while in vitro skin substitutes can take many weeks to prepare, and are difficult to apply successfully to a patient when the burn area is large...