Challenge

The human skin is a complex organ consisting of different cell types as well as extracellular components and forming a protective barrier against physical, chemical, mechanical, and biological influences. When a large area of skin is injured, the barrier function and aseptic conditions must be restored quickly. In addition, rapid and extensive growth and colonization of the wound by the cellular components is also essential. To enable the wound to heal better, cold plasmas have been used for several years, as they are antiseptic and promote microcirculation in the wound area. However, plasma therapy has not yet been combined with cell-based procedures. To date, large-area wounds are often treated with cellular components grown over several weeks to form transplantable flaps. As an alternative, synthetic skin substitutes consisting of non-biological molecules and polymers are used for wound care.

Goals and procedure

The Skin-Las project aims to develop a method for spraying cell components onto a wound. Initially, plasma treatment and cell spray will be applied successively but the long-term aim is to develop a device that combines both functions. This would significantly shorten the lengthy wound treatment of about seven to 16 weeks that must be expected with cold plasma treatment alone. The project team does not use complete cells but so-called exosomes, small molecular structures that cells use as transport vehicles. The exosomes are to be applied to the wound homogeneously over a large area using an applicator to be developed in the project. This will reduce scarring and lower the risk of serious wound infections. The project will initially use an approach with cultured fibroblasts or keratinocytes to develop the basis for wound treatment with cold plasma and, following each cold plasma cycle, with the cell spray.

Innovations and perspectives

The project results are to be used for the development of a medical device that is adapted to the modalities of medical plasma wound therapy. Using this device to combine plasma treatment and cell spray can lead to shorter treatment times and a lower repetition frequency of the treatment or even shorten inpatient treatment at the hospital. Thus, the product has the potential to reduce the cost of hospitalization and also the patient’s suffering. In the global medical devices market, wound care ranked in the top 15 market segments with revenues of 13 billion Dollars in 2017. It is predicted to grow by 4.6 percent to 17.8 billion Dollars by 2024. For the IBA GmbH, this opens up important new markets for the technology to isolate cells or exosomes, both in research and development and in the market for therapeutic applications.