• Question: If it were to happen that you got deep wounds that would heal after a long period of time, can stem cell methods make it heal much faster and potentially prevent the person from dying

    Asked by hummycloze to Matt on 13 Nov 2013.
    • Photo: Matthew Tomlinson

      Matthew Tomlinson answered on 13 Nov 2013:

      Hi hummycloze

      Yes I think stem cells will be to used for wound healing in the future. There is a lot of research into using skin stem cells to create artificial skin which can be used treat burns for example. These skin substitutes can be used to speed up the healing process for plenty of other long term wounds.

      Alternatively there are studies that have used something called ‘extracellular matrix’ to help heal wounds. This substance is like the scaffold that all the cells in a body sit on, giving structure and shape. People have shown that you can use this substance to get the cells already in the body to start to grow again and close up the wound, so its like using the bodies own stem cells.

      I hope this answers your question!

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