Stem Cells in a Spray Can?

There has been an explosion of stem cell therapies over the past year. Some of them include: An AIDS patient being cured of his condition by an infusion of stem cells. It also cured the leukemia that he had as well.

An artificial kidney that incorporates the patient's own stem cells to regulate the metabolic functions that a normal kidney controls like the electrolytes and sodium. They have also used male stem cells that are destined to be sperm cells to make insulin by switching the genetic code to islet cells that normally appear in the pancreas.

It seems like more uses for stem cells are limited only by the researcher's imaginations. Now they have put the patient's own stem cells in a spray can. Then the cells are sprayed on burned areas of the body and they grow into new skin cells.

According to KSL.com:

"A spray solution of a patient's own stem cells is healing severe burns. So far, early experiments under a University of Utah pilot project are showing some remarkable results. What was once a serious burn on Kaye Adkins foot is healing nicely now because of a topical spray. With diabetes as a complication, the small but open wound had not healed after weeks of failed treatments."

Although the spray is only being used on small burns now, the doctors hope that eventually it can be used for large burns.

The only treatment now for burns that cover a large portion of a patient's body is to remove skin tissue from other parts of his or her body and graft them onto the affected area. This is a long and painful process. A friend of mine has a son who was burned severely on his neck and chest when he was about five-years-old.

He was playing with a lighter and noticed that his T-shirt had a loose piece of string hanging off of it. He tried to burn the string off and the shirt went up in flames, resulting in third degree burns. He is now in his twenties and has just finished the skin grafts.

Using the stem cells, the burn victim wouldn't have to wait for the doner area of removed skin to grow back. And I'm sure that ripping somebody's skin off of their rear is pretty painful. It seems that the stem cell spray works even when the patient's own skin grafts have failed in the past.

The doctors hope that eventually they will be able to grow unlimited amounts of the patient's own skin in a bioreactor and treat patients who are burned over a large percentage of their body.

Source: http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=13424065