A human burn has just been successfully treated using live-cell pig skin tissue

When someone has a severe burn, a protective covering needs to be temporarily grafted onto the wound site – and as soon as possible. Although that covering typically consists of skin from a human cadaver, genetically-engineered live-cell pigskin has now been used on a patient for the first time.

Applied to second- and third-degree burns, sheets of human cadaveric skin – also known as allografts – initially help to protect wounds against infection and fluid loss, along with the potentially-lethal complications that could follow. Once the recipient has stabilized, the allograft is removed and a piece of the patient’s own skin, from another part of their body, is permanently transplanted onto the wound. Unfortunately, though, allografts are often in short supply, plus they can be expensive.

With that in mind, scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) developed a genetically-modified line of pigs, back in…
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