Scientists grow genetically modified skin to save dying boy's life
A team of doctors in Germany and scientists in Italy were able to help a boy from Syria with a genetic disorder that left him with untreatable wounds covering 80 percent of his body.
The 7-year-old fled with his family from Syria to Germany in 2013, and by the time he started to receive treatment at Ruhr University Bochum, he was running out of time. He has a disease called junctional epidermolysis bullosa, caused by a mutation of the LAMB3 gene, which produces the protein that makes the top layer of skin connect to deeper layers underneath. The condition made his skin fragile and quick to blister, and his epidermis was still intact only on his head and a patch of his left leg. With all options exhausted, doctors reached out to scientists in Italy, asking if they could grow replacement skin for their young patient.
The scientists had regenerated healthy skin in a lab before, but never for as tall an order as this. They took epidermal cells from an area of his skin that did not have blisters, and genetically modified it in the lab, using a virus to correct the LAMB3 defect. The scientists then grew colonies of cells with corrected genes into sheets of genetically modified skin, and over two months, they grafted the skin to the patient. The grafts grew together and self-renewed, to the delight of the boy's medical team.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Once the epidermis has regenerated, the stem cells take over as in a healthy person, Michele De Luca at the University of Modena told The Guardian. Two years after the surgeries, the boy is doing well, does not take any medication, attends school and plays sports, and when he has a cut, his skin heals.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Organic wines that won't cost the Earth
The Week Recommends From a 'zippy' muscadet to a 'dangerously drinkable' malbec
By Irenie Forshaw, The Week UK Published
-
Can the UK avoid the Trump tariff bombshell?
Today's Big Question President says UK is 'way out of line' but it may still escape worst of US trade levies
By The Week UK Published
-
Beyoncé's record-breaking night at the Grammys
Talking Point Long-denied Album of the Year win rights a 'historic sense of grievance'
By Rebekah Evans, The Week UK Published
-
Europe records big leap in renewable energy
Speed Read Solar power overtook coal for the first time
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Blue Origin conducts 1st test flight of massive rocket
Speed Read The Jeff Bezos-founded space company conducted a mostly successful test flight of its 320-foot-tall New Glenn rocket
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
US won its war on 'murder hornets,' officials say
Speed Read The announcement comes five years after the hornets were first spotted in the US
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Dark energy data suggest Einstein was right
Speed Read Albert Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity has been proven correct, according to data collected by the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
New DNA tests of Pompeii dead upend popular stories
Speed Read An analysis of skeletal remains reveals that some Mount Vesuvius victims have been wrongly identified
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
NASA's Europa Clipper blasts off, seeking an ocean
Speed Read The ship is headed toward Jupiter on a yearslong journey
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Detailed map of fly's brain holds clues to human mind
Speed Read This remarkable fruit fly brain analysis will aid in future human brain research
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Blind people will listen to next week's total eclipse
Speed Read While they can't see the event, they can hear it with a device that translates the sky's brightness into music
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published