Skin grafts have traditionally been created from cell cultures taken from the patient — a process that takes three weeks, too long for some patients suffering extensive burns.The new method using stem cells allows hospitals to order human skin as soon as they take in a burns victim.

“What our findings can provide is a way to cover the burns during those three weeks with skin epidermis … produced in that factory and sent to the physician at the moment they receive a severely burned patient,” Marc Peschanski, research director at the institute I-Stem, told Reuters Television.