Local company unveils ‘spray-skin’ treatment

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Local company unveils ‘spray-skin’ treatment

Bio-venture firm Modern Cell and Tissue Technology, or MCTT, has received permission from the Korea Food and Drug Administration for commercial sales of its newly-developed “spray-skin” treatment Autocel, the firm said yesterday. Autocel takes cells from a patient’s skin, cultures them for about two weeks and turns them into a liquid form that can be sprayed on wounds to accelerate skin growth for people recovering from plastic surgery, or suffering from severe burns, ulcers or other skin damage. To manufacture Autocel, epidermis, or outer-layer cells, are divided from the normal skin tissue of the patient and then cultured in a test tube for 16 days. During this process, the cells multiply by 150 to 200 times their original number. “This spraying technique ensures higher rates of survival and skin regeneration without any scars,” a researcher at MCTT said. “Because Autocel is not a shelf product but manufactured from the epidermis cells originated from the tissues of the patient, it is not rejected by patients’ immune systems. Of course, we conduct various anti-germ tests and other safety tests during the process of expansion and culture,” she added. The original technology was developed over five years by a government-supported research team at the Korea Institute of Radiological and Medical Sciences. The technology was transferred to MCTT, which then worked on adapting it for commercial use. Jang Song-seon, president of MCTT, said that the firm plans to conduct some in-house tests for two or three more months before making the product available to the public. Autocel is the latest in a line of Korean biotechnology firms that have created customized skin. Tego Science already produces Holoderm, in which a small biopsy is taken from the patient and grown into large “sheets” of skin within two to three weeks. by Wohn Dong-hee
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