Spray-on skin (ReCell)
Piel en espray (ReCell)
- Date
- 1993 · confidence high
- Place
- Royal Perth Hospital, Perth, Western Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- Fiona Wood and Marie Stoner
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A technique that grows a suspension of epithelial cells from a small skin sample and applies it as a spray over burns. It lets large areas be covered with a tiny piece of healthy skin and speeds healing.
Wood developed the method around 1993 in Perth; the ReCell device was commercialised by a company she co-founded, which uses the patient's own cells without culture.
What it led to
- treatment of extensive burns, including the victims of the 2002 Bali bombing
- the ReCell device for use in the operating theatre
- skin-cell therapies for vitiligo