“If Icelandic, American, and now French doctors are interested in our product, it is thanks to Iceland. They find it fascinating to use something natural, taken from the ocean in an eco-responsible way and used to treat the human body”, says Guðmundur Fertram Sigurjonsson, founding president of the Kerecis company, to the magazine “We the Europeans” (replay). And in this company, the manufacture of grafts from fish skins is an industrial secret…
In sanitized rooms, the dried skin is stripped of its scales. The pure and cold Icelandic waters protected these skins from viruses and bacteria. To replace the human skin during the transplant, it will be enough to wet it in the operating room. “I think the most rewarding thing about working here is seeing the advances in science and the stories of the sick. Sometimes we even saved lives”welcomes Gukka, production manager.
“Fish skin fades and disappears”
Pétur Oddsson is an electrician. Three years ago, it was 45% burned on a high voltage line. He’s a survivor! After four months in a coma, he woke up with fish skin grafts all over his body: “Fish skin fades and disappears, he explains, showing his transplanted arm. I was burned all over. Here, there, and in the back…”
“Nobody could tell if I was going to survive or not, he specifies. I just know they used a lot of cod skin. The Kerecis laboratory brought it again and again. For me it was hard to believe, because in my childhood, nobody had the right to cod. No one ate it in Iceland. Here, we ate haddock. Cod was a luxury fish that we exported…”
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