Wake Forest Researchers Swap Skin Grafts For Cell Spraying

TigerWolf2 writes with this excerpt from a Reuters story carried by Yahoo: "Inspired by a standard office inkjet printer, US researchers have rigged up a device that can spray skin cells directly onto burn victims, quickly protecting and healing their wounds as an alternative to skin grafts. ... Tests on mice showed the spray system, called bioprinting, could heal wounds quickly and safely, the researchers reported at the Translational Regenerative Medicine Forum."

Comments

Re:interesting concept

[FooAtWFU]

My little sister actually had a summer internship with the Wake Forest Center for Regenerative Medicine. One of the things she would do is basically give puncture wounds to mice. After this experience, she apparently didn't want to be a researcher anymore.

Re:interesting concept

[Jimbookis]

It's already been pioneered, done and patented by Fiona Woods here in Australia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Wood. But we all know the USians only give a crap about their own patents, no-one else's. Just look at the shit-fight CSIRO had to go through to get money out of companies in the USA to honour their WiFi related patents.

Re:interesting concept

[Red Flayer]

Yeah, while the premise is the same, implementations are not. The device being tested in the US is not the same as the delivery mechanism Woods uses, hence no invalidation for prior art.

Besides, what Woods should really be recognized for is not the spray-on delivery, but instead the advances in culturing techniques. This was the real breakthrough, IMO.

Of note, Woods got a lot of criticism for using her methods without it going through clinical trials. They're still not out of clinical trials, AFAIK...