Medical innovation from sheep stomach

As I’m writing this, a piece of sheep’s stomach is lying next to me on the table. It’s not like I imagined a sheep’s stomach would be. It’s not slimy and it doesn’t smell.

It looks more like a big cracker – the ones you smear with dips. It’s wafer thin and studded with tiny holes.

What I’m looking at is the result of more than a decade of research and development started by Dr Brian Ward, who began his professional life as a vet.

Ward is the founder and chief executive of Aroa¯ Biosurgery, a biotech company based in Auckland that is turning a waste product from agriculture into high-value medical products.

I recently got a tour of Aroa¯ ’s facilities, where Ward and his team of scientists and engineers take a sheep’s forestomach and strip it down until all that remains is its extracellular matrix, or ECM.

The ECM is a three-dimensional scaffold that is present in animal tissues and organs.

ECMs are more than a scaffold for our cells to grow on, they also contain a rich and complex mixture of molecules that provide the biochemical cues our cells and tissues need to grow and develop.

Or to make repairs after they’ve been damaged.

That’s where Aroa¯ comes in. It has been working with specialists in the United States to test whether dressings made from its sheep ECM can be used to treat wounds, from pressure and diabetic ulcers to burns and surgical wounds.

In a recent study, staff at a hospital for military veterans used these dressings to treat patients suffering from wounds and ulcers on their feet.

With its before and after photos, the paper isn’t for the faint-hearted.

They found that the ECM dressings healed more wounds and more quickly.

So next time you’re tucking into a lamb cutlet, think of the Kiwi ingenuity that’s turning a bit of the animal we don’t eat into a valuable medical treatment.

The ECM dressings healed more wounds and more quickly.