As you may have experienced by yourself when out at the beach, jellyfish are not the most skin-friendly creatures out there. But researchers from the Scientific Research Center of Yucatán think that it may actually be the other way around.
They’ve discovered a particular species of jellyfish boasting a structure that’s surprisingly similar to human skin, which they believe could be used to create future scaffolds for healing damaged skin.
Skin tissue scaffolds commonly use skin cells from human patients or donors. But in order to be accepted by the body and used to grow the necessary regenerative tissue, scaffolds must be the right kind of material; ideally as similar as possible to human skin. This species of jellyfish, called Cassiopea andromeda, fits the bill.
To create the new scaffolds, the team of researchers collected more than 100 jellyfish. They decellularized them by first freeze-drying and then dehydrating them, forming the basis of the scaffold structures onto which new skin would grow.
Currently, the researchers are working on scaling the process and hope that the breakthrough will eventually revolutionize the way damaged skin is repaired.
