The skin cell gun developed by Dr. Jörg C. Gerlach is demonstrated in the following video. A young man is the victim of second degree burns on a Friday night; by the following Monday, his skin had completely healed.
(Skin cell gun video)
Dr. Gerlach describes it this way:
"We call it the skin cell gun... a device for the deposition of skin cells onto the wound...
"Skin cell spraying is like paint spraying... but you need a more sophisticated device [that is] computer-controlled... We isolate cells from the healthy part of the skin, the patient's own cells, which can be taken in a water solution, and that solution is prepared for cell spraying...
"It takes one-and-a-half hours to do the biopsy and take the cells and then spray the cells.
Science fiction fans were familiarized with the idea of spray-on skin in the works of Philip K. Dick. In his 1960 story Dr. Futurity, he wrote about art-derm:
Over her lacerated right shoulder he sprayed art-derm; it sealed off the open wound, halted bleeding, and prohibited infection.
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.' - Robert Heinlein, 1956
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