The Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), Kochi, has developed a new fish derived membrane that is being claimed as an artificial skin for treating burns and wounds and also for dental applications.

The membrane, a polymerised product prepared from collagen of fish air bladder and chitosan of prawn shell, has been developed by Susheela Mathew and Dr. Mukundan of the Biochemistry and Nutrition Divisions of CIFT.

The development endeavours to develop a perfect biological dressing. According to K. Devadasan, Director, CIFT, the trials using the membrane conducted at the Kozhikode Medical College has revealed that the membrane has many advantages like easy adhesion and stickiness, proper wound closure, prevention of fluid and blood loss, protection from micro-organisms, oxygen permeability and better healing.

The natural membrane was used to treat 26 patients with furcation and infrabony defects using the Guided Tissue Regeneration (GTR) procedure. All patients in the GTR exposed group recorded better gain and bone fill when reviewed after allowing for tissue regeneration time.

Biological dressings for burns are crucial to prevent excessive water loss from the body which may lead to bacterial infection. Unfortunately, biological dressings like sterilized human amnion, biosynthetic wound dressing, deep frozen porcine split skin, human flesh and cadaver skin graft do not serve the purpose in all aspects.

The dental application of the membrane was initiated by a six month experimental trial as part of a research project at the Department of Periodontics, Thiruvananthapuram Dental College.

In the trial, CIFT has also been able to treat periodontal defects with collagen-chitosan membrane. This product has the scope to achieve import substitution in a big way, according to Devadasan, who also added that it could in a big way replace Periochip, manufactured by Perioproducts Ltd, Jerusalem, Israel, for an American company which markets the product worldwide.

Further, this product helps doing away with re-entry surgery. Teflon which currently used for GTR requires re-entry surgery for its removal which can be done away with using the CIFT product, according to Devadasan.

Devadasan however refused to divulge how CIFT would be commerically exploiting the new find. He claimed that CIFT was initiating measures to get the research into the limelight for commercial exploitation in the coming months.