Oxford University has come up with a gel, which if implanted, is capable of curing birth defects. This “hydrogel” may help healing children with some major common birth defects, e. g., cleft palate and webbed fingers by implanting the gel next to the wound. This gel heals as it makes the skin around the wounds to grow; the surplus skin is then used to close the wounded areas, thus healing it without need of slicing skin from any other part of the body.

The surgeons say that using this gel will help people with birth defects like scars, clefts or burns to have a more shaped and improved look. Due to these defects, one out of every 700 people in Britain suffers problems in eating and speaking as they have these birth defects resulting in scars or cuts in lip, palate or mouth.

In the usual surgery, either the wounds are healed by stitches or if the clefts are major, the babies may require radical surgery. If not treated well, the problem sometimes results in fistula, a hole between the mouth and nasal passage. But this new technique involves placing in of anisotropic hydrogel plate, which has been proved to be capable of expanding 1,500% of its original size after getting water from the body.

The procedure is predicted to be properly used by 2013 benefitting thousands of children.