Piel generada exogenamente salva vidas...

Physicians Use Gene Therapy To Create New Skin For Boy With Junctional Epidermolysis Bullosa.

The New York Times (11/8, Grady, Subscription Publication) reports a group of physicians "used gene therapy to grow sheets of healthy skin that saved the life of a 7-year-old boy with" junctional epidermolysis bullosa that "had destroyed most of his skin." The article points out that the technique had been used before, "but it was by far the most body surface ever covered in a patient with a genetic disorder: nine square feet." The AP (11/8, Cheng) reports the physicians say that the boy is doing well two years after receiving treatment, and that he no longer requires any medication to treat his condition. The physicians published their results in Nature.

        The Los Angeles Times (11/8, Healy) reports that prior to treatment, "infections arising from blisters and sores had destroyed 60% of his skin," and the boy "was in excruciating pain despite round-the-clock morphine." STAT (11/8, Blau) reports the physicians were "ultimately able to reconstruct fully functional skin for 80 percent of the boy's body by grafting on genetically modified cells taken from the boy's healthy skin." ABC News (11/8, Handler) reports on its website that since the treatment, "the grafted skin attached to his body has continued to replace itself."

        Additional coverage is provided by: The Atlantic(11/8, Yong), TIME (11/8, Ducharme), Newsweek(11/8, Sheridan), and BBC News (UK) (11/8).

Benjamin Hidalgo-Matlock

Skin Care Physicians of Costa Rica

4000-1054

2208-8206

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