National Burns Centre ::: A 50 beded Burns Hospital at Airoli, New Mumbai :::

A state-of-the- art Skin Regeneration Lab. has been set up with the following Aims and objectives.

Aim: Development of Autologous and allogenic Keratinocyte cells in conjunction with composite Biomaterials to create a cultured graft to resurface the burn wound.

In India nearly 3 million burn cases occur every year. About 1 million deaths take place and over 0.5 million are crippled. The major causes of burns in our country are:

1.	cooking on stoves and gas cylinders
2.	Vehicle accidents
3.	Bride burning
4.	Crackers
5.	industrial burns
6.	Electrical burns
7.	Hot water on children and women

It is seen that in India proper safely guidelines are not followed by the workers in the industrial areas. In industrial area flame, electrical, chemical, or oil burst are common cause of burns. Domestic accidents occurs during cooking, handling the water heating units and due to accidental spilling of hot liquids on the infants. In such cases of extensive deep burns, the skin which acts as a barrier is burnt and the body is wide open to external infectious agents. unless we put a cover on burnt area the patient dies of infection. when the area is more than 50% of total body surface area then the patient does not have enough skin to cover . in such cases there is a need of tissue engineered skin substitute. Looking at this scenario our country needs more burns research centers which helps people who are in desperate need.

Tissue-engineered skin substitute is a significant advancement in the field of wound healing and was developed due to limitations associated with the use of autografts. These limitations include the creation of a donor site which is at risk of developing pain, scarring, infection and/or slow healing. One of those substitute is Cultured epidermal autografts . It can provide permanent coverage of large area from a skin biopsy. However, 3 weeks are needed for graft cultivation. However Cultured epidermal allografts are available immediately and no biopsy is necessary. They can be cryopreserved and banked. The potential risks and benefits of using tissue-engineered skin need to be further evaluated in clinical trials but it is obvious that they offer a new option for the treatment of wounds.

A number of dermal substrates like Integra are commercially available and many others are in development. But the cost of production is very high , On the contrary it is observed that most of the burns victims are from the lower economic strata of the society who just cannot afford such expensive treatment. So this project will result in the development of cost effective skin substitute.In addition this is going to help recovery & decrease of mortality of severely burnt patients. So is the intensity of research to develop newer methods to save such patients. That is the reason we would like to work on this project, which helps basically poor people.

Future Goal: In future we are planning to work on stem cell based development of keratinocyte culture and to develop an ideal and cost effective skin substitute for the burns injury.

With this set of world class infrastructure and dedicated human resource we are confident of bringing a revolution in burns injury treatment in India