00:00In Algeciras, in the south of Spain, Fran's life changed completely on a summer day seven
00:07years ago.
00:08A day that is impossible to forget.
00:10On August 5, 2017, a light transformer exploded in the hotel where we worked while we were
00:17having dinner.
00:18And then I burned 75% of my body, especially my arms and legs, but also a little bit here
00:24on the head, the ears, the back and the glutes a little bit.
00:29When he arrived at the hospital, Fran was given less than 48 hours to live.
00:34But today, he has recovered thanks to more than a dozen operations and several grafts
00:39of his own, as well as artificial skin.
00:41Look, as I said before, both my hands and right arm were directly taken from my body.
00:48It was healthy skin that I had, so they could remove that skin from one part of my body
00:51and put it in another.
00:52In that case, the two hands and right arm were like this.
00:55This skin is more elastic, that is, you take a nail and you can take it well.
01:00However, this one, which is the cultivated one, is harder, it is more rigid.
01:05In this hospital in Seville, artificial human skin grafts were authorized to be used for
01:10the first time as medicine.
01:12David is one of the surgeons who will be in charge of applying it.
01:16The cultivation of keratinocytes has been done for 30 years.
01:20The novelty now is that we have the permission of the Spanish Medicines Agency to use it
01:24as a mass therapy.
01:25Now we know that we have a therapy that works, so they have not given us the authorization.
01:31It is no longer experimental, it is already a therapy.
01:33In the hallways of the major burn unit, they have been working with artificial skin for
01:38years and are well aware of the advantages.
01:41The main thing, and what we always have to take into account from the care of the infirmary,
01:45is the risk of infection that we have, because they are patients who, when losing almost
01:51all the integrity of the skin, are very susceptible to any infection.
01:56So far, 12 square meters of artificial skin have been manufactured and all have been applied
02:01to patients in the major burn unit of the Virgen del Rocío hospital.
02:06In total, 18 people have already benefited from this treatment.
02:12But it has taken years of research to develop the artificial human skin.
02:18The head of that research has been a professor at the University of Granada.
02:42All of this work will help people like Fran feel comfortable in their skin again.
02:48For more information, visit www.ISGlobal.org
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