In the future, chances are we don't need to depend on human donations for life-saving skin grafts (移植).
That's the goal of Xeno Therapeutics, a biotech non-profit organization. The US Food and Drug Administration approved the group's initial application for temporary skin grafts removed from genetically modified (基因改良) pigs. This means that they can start testing pig skin grafts on people who have experienced severe burns.
Skin, the body's largest organ, plays an important role in blocking pathogens (病原体) from reaching our organs inside. It also helps the body keep a constant temperature. People with severe skin damage are at a high risk of developing deadly infections as a result of changes in temperature.
At the moment, the only skin grafts available in the US come from the dead people who have agreed to be organ donors, or patients who have gone through surgery to remove skin after large weight loss. These human skins used for grafts are not easy to find.
Xeno Therapeutics, which gets its name from animal-to-human transplants, has raised pigs that have skin remarkably similar to our own. Grafts from these pigs are therefore more likely to hide without being detected by the host's immune system — at least temporarily. The idea is that they could be used for immediate burn treatment, followed human skin graft treatment later.
"I'd say that just like comparing a Coke with Pepsi, it would be hard to tell which was the human skin and which was the pig graft," said Xeno Therapeutics CEO Paul Holzer.
The non-profit organization has been working to conduct the clinical trials, which will only be testing the grafts' safety and tolerability in six patients with severe burns. Assuming the results are positive after a month, the grafts will need to pass through two more stages of testing before they can be approved for widespread clinical use.
Several other groups around the world are working to make animal organs suitable for clinical medicine. In Brazil, researchers are exploring using tilapia skin as temporary bandages for burn victims whose skin is regrowing.
