European researchers working on the EUREKA project ModPolEUV have found a new method of rebuilding parts of the body that have been damaged using polymeric material.  

Johannes Heitz, main coordinator of the ModPolEUV project and Senior Research Associate at the University of Linz, Austria, along with Dr. Henryk Fiederowicz, professor at the Military University of Technology in Warsaw, and a team of European scientists, have developed a new and better way of growing human cells in the event that the body has been damaged.  

Using polymeric material to regrow human cells is not a new discovery. According to Heitz, researchers have known for a few years that synthetic polymeric materials have the ability to not only grow, but also multiply human cells significantly in order to develop new body parts faster. What's new about this study is the method that this particular group of scientists chose in which to grow the human cells.  

Heitz and his team have created a new laser-based technology called EUV, which stands for Extreme Ultra-Violet. The beam of EUV light was made with a special mirror, and when this EUV light hits the material, new types of polymeric materials can be made. Specifically, nano-structured polymer surfaces were created by the EUV technique. 

The EUV technique has a high level of precision ranging from 10 to 20 nanometers, while older techniques only had a precision level of 100 nanometers. This method also conserves the material's structure.  

The greatest benefit of the EUV method is that the nano-structures made by this technique are capable of influencing organic cells' behavior, which can cause the cells to grow "better and faster depending on the type of polymer surface used."  

"Using one type of polymer material or another will help you grow different types of muscle, nerves, cells adapted to a human heart, bone or any other part of the human body," said Heitz.  

This method can be used in a number of medical-related ways. For instance, the World Health Organization estimates that 322,000 deaths worldwide per year are caused in part by severe fire-related injuries. Several of these deaths could have been prevented with surgery, but the problem is that patients with major burns do not have enough skin to graft and need to have skin regrown by skin cells. Prior to this new EUV technique, this process would take much longer, increasing risk of infection in the burn patients exposed wounds. 

The EUV method can also be used to develop medical implants. In the future, it could be used in many fields such as microelectronics, micro-mechanics, and integrated optics. 

The EUV technique is still in a testing phase, but has already been installed into laboratories in the United States, Germany, Japan, China, South Korea, the Czech Republic and France. The next step will be to prepare for the commercial phase.