USA: Scientists develop artificial skin to help sufferers of epidermolysis bullosa, a genetic skin disease which causes blisters

Record ID: 402124

  • Title: USA: Scientists develop artificial skin to help sufferers of epidermolysis bullosa, a genetic skin disease which causes blisters
  • Date: 20th March 2001
  • Summary: (L!3) CLIFTON, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES (RECENT - MARCH 20, 2001) (REUTERS) VARIOUS, EPIDERMOLYSIS BULLOSA (EB) SUFFERER KRISTIN NUGENT SITTING AS HER MOTHER REMOVES BANDAGES FROM BLISTERED ARM SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) KRISTIN NUGENT, EB SUFFERER SAYING: "If I get bumped my skin would tear or a blister would form or if I scratch and have an itch I can cause a blister my
  • Embargoed: 4th April 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK AND CLIFTON, NEW JERSEY, UNITED STATES
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Health
  • Reuters ID: LVA5L2N9XNITXVU23J6YAYDM2599
  • Story Text: A new artificial skin, partly made from babies circumcised foreskins, will soon be available in the United States to help sufferers of a rare and painful skin disease.
    Epidermolysis Bullosa, or EB, is a genetic condition which causes blistering and tearing of the skin at the slightest touch. The bio-engineered skin will help wounds heal much quicker.
    Twelve year old Kristin Nugent, from Clifton, New Jersey, suffers from Epidermolysis Bullosa, and extremely rare and extremely painful genetic defect which means their skin is so delicate it blisters and tears at the smallest touch.
    "If I get bumped my skin would tear or a blister would form, or if I scratch and have an itch I can cause a blister myself," Kristen says.
    The condition for Kristin is so bad that the skin on her hands blisters constantly, eventually moulding her fingers together like a mitten. Then, painful surgery is needed to separate and straighten the fingers. Kristin has to have the operation performed annually, and skin from her legs has to be taken for skin grafts, leaving open wounds which take months to heal.
    Her mother, Teresa Szostak (pronounced SHOW-STACK), explains: "The fingers tend to web together and contract together so what you're left with is a ball that is not a usable hand and once you let it get to that point and you do nothing for it everything will just meld together and that's all she'll have."
    But soon there will be a new artificial skin on the market which could greatly ease EB sufferers pain.
    The bio-engineered skin was invented in Australia by Dr Micheal Eisenberg, who devoted his life to developing the product after his son was born with the disease. He sold the patent to New York company, Ortec which hopes to make the skin available in select hospitals in the United States this summer.
    The cultured composite skin is made from cells taken from babies circumcised foreskins. In Ortec's Manhattan labs, the cell culture is gelled with synthetic material and then placed onto open wounds, greatly aiding and speeding up the healing process.
    The proteins in the cultured cells encourage the bodies own skin the heal quicker. It also produces stronger more durable skin. President and CEO of Ortec, Dr Steven Katz explains the process: "What we have here is introducing cells into a wound which are producing proteins, and these proteins do a number of things, among those is send signals to the body to send in its own cells to the wound area so it can reconstruct itself and build its own skin."
    The artificial skin has just received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA) for use on EB sufferers hands and donor sites where skin grafts are taken to perform the finger separation surgery.
    The cultured skin is not a cure for EB, because the disease is genetic, however it should mean that the wounds will heal at a minimum of twice as fast.
    "The idea that the donor site can heal in a week instead of three months in itself to me is a miraculous thing, so I'm very excited about it," says Teresa Szostak.
    Ortec is now in the process of applying for permission to produce the cultured skin for burns victims and ulcers, and company executives hope the artificial skin will be available for a much wider use in the next few years following more clinical research.
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