Saving skin and lives with Smart Matrix™

RAFT’s Smart Matrix™ has the potential to become the new standard-of-care in the treatment of a variety of full thickness, life-threatening skin wounds.

Skin, the largest organ in the body, can suffer wounds that are difficult to treat and heal. Burns and skin ulcerations in particular can challenge any doctor and can easily lead to premature death. Although the outer layer of the skin (epidermis) can respond to treatment, the tough, thick inner layer of skin (dermis) does not reform during the healing of a full thickness wound.

“When a burn or chronic wound such as a leg ulcer severely damages skin, the body can never regenerate full thickness skin,” says Dr Julian Dye, RAFT group leader and Smart Matrix™ project leader. If the patient recovers, they are most times left with disfiguring scares which can impede body movement.

In addition, due to the amount of burns someone suffers, there might not be enough undamaged skin left for grafts or the poor health of the patient might forbid taking skin grafts. “For some patients, conventional grafts also come with the risk of simply creating a new wound site elsewhere on the body which cannot heal completely,” says Dr Dye. “This is most problematic in elderly patients with pressure sores and people with diabetic or other chronic ulcers.”

But even in the healthiest of patients, removing of skin for grafts can easily lead to infection and is extremely painful.

London firefighter Richard Richards, who suffered severe burns while fighting a house fire, described the pain of having undamaged skin removed for grafts this way. “Go back to your childhood and remember the most painful skin scrap you ever had. Now multiply that pain by about a billion times.”

However, there may soon be a better alternative which will increase the survivability of patients.

Smart Matrix™ is an artificial skin scaffold which encourages rapid growth of blood capillaries when placed into a wound bed in the dermis. Much like how a scaffold supports the work around a home’s roof repairs, Smart Matrix™ also provides a scaffold, giving the body something to regenerate new skin around.

During the wound healing process, Smart Matrix™ attracts cells into the matrix and promotes growth of blood capillaries which is critical for the wound healing process. The scaffold is completely reabsorbed by the body within three weeks, by which time wound healing should have occurred.

All tests so far have been extremely encouraging and clinical trials should take place this year.

“I joined RAFT in 2001 as post-doctoral research scientist and was appointed Group Leader in 2004,” says Dr Dye who has a background in endothelial biology – the biology of skin cells which form blood vessels. “The initial motivation to pursue the idea of a ‘Smart Matrix’ was hearing from plastic surgeons about limitations and failures of existing artificial skin products.

“However, it was witnessing the reality of what patients needing surgical skin reconstruction undergo, and talking with patients who had survived and endured prolonged suffering from wound infections, made me appreciate the urgency of this need and it continues to spur us at RAFT forward.”

We are delighted that Lt Col Steven Jeffery a Burns & Consultant Plastic Surgeon at Selly Oak Hospital and a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps has become a Patron for RAFT. His expertise within the military field will be hugely benefical to this research. 

Leonor Stjepic, CEO

"Having spent more than 40 years in the Royal Army Medical Corps and 35 years as a practicing military and trauma surgeon I have a deep understanding of the consequences of war injury and in particular, the life long disfigurement and suffering that may follow.  Injury on the battlefield is so often devastating and mutilating.  RAFT with its pioneering research programmes is there to help the wounded and that is why I am proud to be a Patron."

Jim Ryan OStJ, MB, MCh, FRCS, Hon FCEM, DMCC