Thousands of patients with severe burns and ulcerous wounds should soon benefit from "biological bandages" which use their own cells to regenerate skin.

Doctors said the bandages, 10 years in development by CellTran, a spin-off from Sheffield University, are used alongside conventional skin grafts to ease pain and speed recovery.

Samples of skin are taken and the cells are then expanded hundreds-fold in the laboratory before being put on dressings. These are applied to damaged regions, releasing the cells so that they can jump-start growth.

Myskin has already been tried on burns patients at the Northern General hospital, Sheffield, and have produced some "excellent results", said David Ralston, a burns and plastic surgeon.