MEDICINE

Fish Skin Can Heal Other Animals’ Eye Injuries

Tilapia skin’s collagen can aid in healing burns, fixing heart valves, and more—and now it can be used for repairing corneas

By Jill Langlois on October 1, 2023

Tilapia skin is rich in collagen, and this structural protein's abundance has made the fish a popular resource in veterinary and human medicine. Researchers have explored its use in applications from bandaging burn victims and correcting abdominal hernias to mending heart valves and reconstructing vaginas.

Inspired by colleagues in a dozen other specialties, Mirza Melo, a veterinary ophthalmologist in northeastern Brazil's Ceará state, tested tilapia skin to treat a pervasive problem in her field: corneal ulcers and perforations, particularly in dogs with short snouts. “These are species with very prominent eyes,” she says. “So they get injured often.“

Such corneal injuries are commonly treated by surgically placing a membrane made of horse placenta (also a collagen source but with a lower concentration than tilapia skin, Melo says) over the affected area to help it regenerate. Melo first swapped that membrane for tilapia skin in 2019, when she successfully operated on a Shih Tzu with a severe corneal perforation.

Brazil's Burn Support Institute and the Federal University of Ceará—home of the Tilapia Skin Project, which pioneered the skin's use to treat burns—approached her about the surgical technique. With their support Melo began testing a membrane she called the acellular dermal matrix (ADM), made of pure collagen extracted from the fish skin.

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