Baby Receives First-Ever Man-Made Skin Graft
January 14, 1999 - 0:0
MIAMI An eight-week-old baby received a graft of artificial skin in the first operation of its kind, Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital said. Tori Cameron, of Boca Raton, Florida, was born November 12 with a genetic disease affecting some 100,000 U.S. children. Epidermolysis bullosa leaves the skin so sensitive that the least touch can raise blisters like a second-degree burn, so Tori's parents have never been able to touch her.
She received the graft of apligraf skin made by Novartis, a New Jersey pharmaceutical company. Apligraf is made from a sample of human skin cells grown to 200,000 their original size in cow collagen, a protein derived from teeth, bones and other hard tissues. The original cells came from the foreskins of newborns that were circumcized, a common practice in U.S. hospitals.
Forty percent of the skin on Tori's body has already been replaced with apligraf, which was applied in square, almost transparent, patches 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) a side. Said Tori's father, Randy Cameron: It's kind of amazing that my daughter is going to be the first to do it, but it's not the kind of achievement a father dreams about, the Miami Herald said.
(AFP)
She received the graft of apligraf skin made by Novartis, a New Jersey pharmaceutical company. Apligraf is made from a sample of human skin cells grown to 200,000 their original size in cow collagen, a protein derived from teeth, bones and other hard tissues. The original cells came from the foreskins of newborns that were circumcized, a common practice in U.S. hospitals.
Forty percent of the skin on Tori's body has already been replaced with apligraf, which was applied in square, almost transparent, patches 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) a side. Said Tori's father, Randy Cameron: It's kind of amazing that my daughter is going to be the first to do it, but it's not the kind of achievement a father dreams about, the Miami Herald said.
(AFP)