The Spray on Skin Gun Heals Burns Within Hours or Days

A remarkable device called the spray on skin gun is featured in a YouTube video from an upcoming National Geographic TV special. The skin gun promises to be a boon to burn victims as much as penicillin was to people with infections.

The way the spray on skin gun works is that a burn victim's healthy stem cells are taken from his skin, are cultured in a liquid bath, and then are sprayed on the burned parts of his body. Within days, the burn is healed. The man in the video, who had severe second-degree burns on his face and arm, was completely healed within four days.

The spray on skin gun has been under development for the past couple of years by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Modern war has caused a number of burn casualties that the military is keenly interested in finding better ways to treat. So far the kin gun, developed by Dr. Jorge C. Gerlach, has successfully treated 12 people with severe burn injuries.

Typically a burn victim must spend weeks and even months waiting for skin grafts to take hold, with the accompanying agony and risk of serious infection. The spray on skin gun reduces this recovery time to days or even hours.

The development of this technology is part of a larger effort to find ways to regrow limbs that have been blown off by IEDs and even damaged organs, using a person's own stem cells, so they can be transplanted without fear of rejection. The various research projects, conducted as they have been for the military, will be of great benefit to civilian patients as well.

It is one of the great ironies of history that wars, which result in death and serious injury, have also resulted in great medical advances. The American Civil War saw the development of morphine as a means to alleviate pain in trauma victims, necessary as the most common surgical procedure after a battle was the amputation of a limb. World War I saw the introduction of blood transfusion. World War II encouraged the use of penicillin to fight infections. Korea and Vietnam featured techniques to get a trauma victim rapidly to a MASH unit to get his injuries treated.

When the spray on skin gun is fully developed and in use in burn centers, the resulting reduction in pain, suffering and death (not to mention the decreased cost of hospital stays) will be incalculable. It is a little disconcerting that the research and development to create the technology required a war to get it funded.

Source: Amazing Spray-On Skin Gun Heals Burned Skin in Days, Chris Brandrick, PC World, February 2nd, 2011