This text is part of the special section Les prix de l’Acfas
The Léo-Pariseau prize is awarded this year to cellular engineering researcher Lucie Germain, who developed with her team a treatment that could facilitate the healing of severe burn victims awaiting a skin graft in Canada.
The full professor at the Faculty of Medicine at Université Laval has discovered an innovative way to reconstitute, in the laboratory, the two upper layers of the skin of flame victims, the dermis and the epidermis. She applied the self-assembly method, a major breakthrough in cellular engineering revealed in 1998, together with researcher François Auger: “We take a tissue [ici un échantillon de peau], we extract the cells, we multiply them to have many. Then we use that to reconstruct in vitro a new fabric, to have a large surface area that can be transplanted,” explains Lucie Germain.
“We can, from a piece the size of a $2 coin, produce enough skin to graft an entire adult, it’s crazy! she adds.
The cells do all the work: they manufacture all of the components of the skin themselves, such as collagen or hyaluronic acid, to name but a few examples that are well known to lovers of cosmetics. Thus, scientists do not have to resort to biomaterials or animal samples to restore damaged tissue.
Since the survivor of a fire receives skin from his cells and not from a donor, the risks of incompatibility are removed and the taking of anti-rejection medication for life becomes superfluous. There are other advantages: larger areas of the body can be grafted without the constraint of the amount of healthy skin available on the patient, and, in the case of pediatric procedures, the tissue enlarges over time. growth.
The discovery is in the clinical trial stage, and the results are promising, according to Lucie Germain. So far, people operated on do not show hypertrophic scars (protuberant, thick and hard), which occur in 30 to 90% of victims of severe burns.
The experiments of the winner and her colleagues also led her to cultivate corneas in a controlled environment using the self-assembly method. A second clinical trial is underway, and several people with eye disease have already benefited from a transplant.
“What I find most interesting in tissue engineering is the short time from which one can go from a discovery at the fundamental level to the application in a patient. Usually, when you discover a drug, it takes twenty years before it arrives in the clinic,” explains the researcher, who also works at the University Hospital Center (CHU) in Quebec. Quickly, it is possible to improve the quality of care, she rejoices. “That’s what I’ve worked for all my life, to make sure that the discoveries made in the laboratory are of use to patients in Quebec. »
Funding, an obstacle
At the Experimental Organogenesis Research Center of Laval University/LOEX, of which Lucie Germain is the scientific director, around a hundred researchers of all kinds strive to find new effective avenues for reconstructing organs and tissues in the laboratory (skin, corneas, heart valves, cartilages, etc.) of better quality using the self-assembly method.
There are culture specialists, laboratory professionals, physical, chemical and mechanical engineers, the latter being necessary to create strong enough blood vessels that do not burst once implanted. The multidisciplinary center also brings together members of the Faculty of Pharmacy, because the recomposed tissues in vitro can be used to test drugs.
“Our research subject is really exciting, so we manage to have students who want to come and work with us,” says Ms.me Germain. We also have very dedicated research professionals because making skin is really demanding: if the surgeons are doing the grafting at 8 a.m., that means that people are going to enter the laboratory at 4 or 5 a.m. to prepare skins. »
If recruitment is not an obstacle, financing is a challenge. Lucie Germain would like to see a GRP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certified laboratory be built, which would allow for more advanced phase 3 clinical studies. But funds are still lacking. “If we want regenerative medicine to move faster, we need more funding,” she concludes.
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