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Synthetic skin could help repair wounds twice as fast: study

Synthetic skin could help repair wounds twice as fast. Photo: 7News

Australian scientists have created a synthetic skin that doubles the speed at which the body can repair itself.

The research is so remarkable it has received a huge grant to get it to clinical trials to help patients, sooner.

Elastin is the body's natural elastic protein.

As we breathe in and out, our lungs expand and contract - that's due to elastin.

Every time our skin flexes, it is due to elastin in those tissues.

It is in our eyes, bladder, ligaments, and every blood vessel and artery that moves as our heart beats.

Elastin is a key building block for human beings, and now scientists have found a way to replicate it.


Professor Tony Weiss, a biochemist at Sydney University, and his team have created a substance that behaves like natural tissue in the skin.

This material - tropoelastin - can repair burns, wounds and even bones twice as fast as current methods.

"It will halve the time it takes to repair your tissue, and the skin will look a lot better after this as well," Professor Weiss told 7News.

It is purified to become a synthetic skin, and a thin layer placed inside the wound.

Like a blueprint showing the cells where to grow, tropoelastin encourages the capillaries to regenerate, then dissolves, leaving behind new and healthy tissue.

"We can save lives," Prof. Weiss said. "There is the opportunity of course where people have substantial burns or substantial damage to the skin, you really need to be able to accelerate wound repair."

It is not just skin wounds and burns that will benefit.

Tropoelastin can be moulded into long fibres, tubes and sponges to repair many different tissues in the body, from lungs to bones.

Professor Fiona Wood, a plastic surgeon and burns specialist, said: "A skin scaffold helps healing some way, shape or form and the way we can help healing without scarring is fantastic."

Their work was awarded a $1 million grant from global charity Wellcome to fast-track tropoelastin to clinical trials, bringing Aussie biomedical ingenuity to patients who need it most.