Advances in regenerative medicine and stem cell research will help wounded soldiers and civilians alike.
AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, has some lofty, but important goals. As covered by DailyTech previously, the goal of the Army-led organization is to help and heal our wounded fighting men and women, allowing them to return to the productive lives they gave to their country. Some of the current goals, limb regeneration especially, may seem lofty, but such things rarely stand in the way of human determination for long.
Some of the stem cell research done by AFIRM members is already showing promising results. Stephen Badylak, a pathologist at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh's announcement last year that a magical pixie dust, created from pig bladders, regrew the severed fingertips of two patients left a mark in the medical community. The dust contains molecules that signal growth factors, overriding the typical scar tissue response when a limb is severed. In just six weeks, the fingertips grew back completely, fingernails included. Badylak is presently doing further research into regrowing more complicated extremities such as arms and legs.
Anthony Atala, a Wake Forest University tissue engineer, has developed an ink jet printer capable of printing entire organs, one layer of cells at a time. The special printer uses cartridges filled with a mix of tissue types, growth factors and nutrients. He has already successfully printed a rat heart, and plans to have a portable model developed in the next five years that can print skin tissue directly onto flesh wounds in battlefield hospitals.
The newest development in progress by AFIRM is nothing less than spray-on skin. The process involves harvesting cells known as keratinocytes from a patient's own skin. Keratinocytes are immature skin cells, which the body constantly produces to create new skin tissue as surface tissue dies. The cells are put into a solution which is then sprayed over a wound.
Clinical trials with the process involved 16 burn patients and showed extremely promising results. Not only did the cells promote growth in the wounds, the recovery time was similar to skin grafting, the standard approach to burn repairs, but without the complications or aesthetic scarring involved.
While the $250 million project is aimed at helping our military men and women, the results of the hard work by AFIRM members will no doubt spill over into civilian medicine, much the way most military technology eventually does. If doctors can print new organs and skin in the battlefield, they can do it at accident scenes on domestic soil. AFIRM may enable one of the most significant leaps in regenerative medicine in history, all thanks to stem cells of various construction and the human desire to help those who have helped and protected us.
DailyTech - Spray-on Skin, AFIRM's Research Leading Regenerative Medicine
