THERAPEUTIC APPLICATIONS OF CHIMERIC ORGANOGENESIS

摘要

A process for culturing and generating a chimeric cell culture, in particular chimeric epithelium, is disclosed. The chimeric epithelium can be used to treat skin traurna such as burn victirns. Autologous epithelial grafts have been used on burn patients although this requires that the patient's cells are cultured and expanded in vitro which generally takes four to five weeks. The chimeric epithelium of the present invention is composed of cells that are both autologous and allogeneic to the host. Therefore, the allogeneic cells can be maintained in a cell bank and cocultured with autologous host cells when needed. This significantly reduces the time required (by up to 50 %) for autologous cell expansion and culture prior to grafting. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that the allogeneic cells are passively eliminated from the graft without rejection of the total graft.