Heather Thompson, Senior Editor
When Thomas Bold joined RenovaCare in 2013, he was already familiar with its potentially groundbreaking technology. Bold had served as StemCell Systems CEO in Berlin for many years. He was involved in the development of the CellMist and SkinGun – the platform technologies for RenovaCare Inc.
The technologies represent a shift in thinking about wound care, Bold said. Bold’s goal is to steer publically-traded RenovaCare to “market the world’s most advanced technology for skin repair using a patient’s own stem cells.” The company recently released the results of a case study featuring a burn victim who showed exceptional results. He answered some Medical Design & Outsourcing questions about the nature of RenovaCare’s technology and how he sees it developing in the future.
MDO: Can you describe RenovaCare’s platform technology?
Bold: For patients and surgeons, our development of spray-on stem cells for rapid and scar-free healing of severe second-degree burns is life-changing.
The CellMist system has two components: the CellMist solution, a water-based solution with the patient’s own stem cells, and the SkinGun, an ultra-gentle spray device which deposits the CellMist solution
A small sample of the patient’s healthy skin is processed to liberate the stem cells from surrounding tissue. The cells are suspended in a water-based solution, placed into a syringe, the syringe is attached to the SkinGun. For the spraying process, we use air flow to gently float the cells onto the wound.
With this technology, we are achieving incredible cell survival rates because the cells are never exposed to thrashing or turbulent forces. Cell survival and, consequently, the number of vital cells determine the ability to heal the wound. In-vitro studies have shown that our SkinGun achieves 97% cell survival.
A wound heals from the edges to the middle and the longer that takes the higher is the risk for inflammation and finally scarring.
With our technology, the stem cells act as thousands of little regenerative islands all over the wound where they will connect to each other and finally close the wound with an epithelial layer. Once this layer is closed, the wound is dry and considered to be healed. After this process, the cosmetic healing will happen all naturally and the result should be a skin that looks, feels and functions as it did before.
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