Doctors created enough skin to cover 80 percent of the body of a seven-year-old boy with a genetic disease — and it saved his life.
This isn’t the first time that doctors have used genetic engineering to grow new skin, but past attempts only grew a little bit. This time, doctors were able to cover nine square feet of the patient’s body. The boy, who has a genetic skin disease called junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB), had been expected to die. Now, two years after the surgery, he lives a normal life and is able to play sports and exercise, the doctors say. The results were published today in the journal Nature.
People with JEB have a genetic mutation that makes their skin blister easily and makes them more likely to develop...
