Fiona Wood - "Spray-on" Skin

"Spray-on" Skin

Wood has become well known for her patented invention of spray-on skin for burn victims, a treatment which is being continually developed. Where previous techniques of skin culturing required 21 days to produce enough cells to cover major burns, Wood has reduced the period to five days. Through research, she found that scarring is greatly reduced if replacement skin could be provided within 10 days. As a burns specialist the Holy Grail for Wood is "scarless woundless healing".

Wood started a company called Clinical Cell Culture (C3) to commercialise the procedure. Her business came about after a schoolteacher arrived at Royal Perth Hospital in 1992 with petrol burns to 90% of his body. Wood turned to the emerging US-invented technology of cultured skin to save his life, working nights in a laboratory along with scientist Marie Stoner. The two women began to explore tissue engineering. They moved from growing skin sheets to spraying skin cells; earning a worldwide reputation as pioneers in their field. The company started operating in 1993 and now cultures small biopsies into bigger volumes of skin cell suspensions in as few as five days. This service is used by surgeons in Sydney, Auckland and Birmingham. Cells can be delivered via aircraft and ready for use the next day in many cases. Royalties from licensing will be ploughed back into a research fund, named the McComb Foundation.

As well as receiving much praise from both her own patients and the media, she also attracted controversy among other burns surgeons due to the fact that spray-on skin had not yet been subjected to clinical trials. A clinical trial is planned at Queen Victoria Hospital, England.