Burned skin healed with human embryonic stem cells

By William Atkins
Friday, 20 November 2009 20:00

Science - Biology

A French study has shown that human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can be potentially used to produce skin grafts for people with large, serious burns.


The summary of the study is published in the November 20, 2009 issue of the journal The Lancet (volume 374, issue 9703, pages 1745-1753; DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61496-3Cite).

The article’s title is “Human embryonic stem-cell derivatives for full reconstruction of the pluristratified epidermis: a preclinical study.”

Its authors are: Hind Guenou, Xavier Nissan, Fernando Larcher, Jessica Feteira, Gilles Lemaitre, Manoubia Saidani, Marcela Del Rio, Christine C Barrault, François-Xavier Bernard, Marc Peschanski, Christine Baldeschi, and Gilles Waksman.

Dr. Hind Guenou, one of the authors, is from the Institute for Stem Cell Therapy and Exploration of Monogenic Diseases, Evry Cedex, France.

The authors state that traditional grafting methods have limitations. For instance, in one technque the skin cells of a burn patient, what is called keratinocytes, is grown in a laboratory setting and used to replace the damaged burned skin.

However, it takes approximately three weeks to grow these cells and, during this time, the patient runs the risk of infection and dehydration.

In other technique, cells from a dead donor can be used. However, this technique has only a limited number of donors, so its use is nominal at best.

Page two discusses their new technique.