Writing in the journal Regenerative Medicine, UK-based company Intercytex said it had produced promising results in early trials.

It said the skin seemed to incorporate itself much better with real tissue than any other skin substitutes tried in the past.

The researchers hope it might provide an alternative to skin grafts.

Currently the best way of treating serious burns and large wounds is to take skin from part of a patient's body and graft it on to the damaged area.

But this is not ideal, and there have been attempts to create a form of artificial skin.

However, some doctors say that the failure of these to fully integrate with the wound have rendered these efforts of limited value.

Intercytex believes its latest version weaves into wounds much better.

Early tests of skin-patch vaccines are beginning in hundreds of volunteers, one version designed to protect against the flu and another to prevent travelers' diarrhea.

The idea isn't just pain-free vaccination. The National Institutes of Health is helping fund patch research in hopes of strengthening today's imperfect flu shots, and gaining extra help if bird flu or some other super-flu ever triggers a pandemic.

Indeed, patch developer Iomai Corp. proposes that the mailman, not a doctor, deliver flu vaccine during a pandemic. Once a vaccine is brewed, simply ship patches to people's homes with instructions to slap one on.

Doctors might not like the go-it-alone method. But the technology's main promise may be in developing countries. Unlike syringe-based vaccines, patches wouldn't need refrigeration — nor pose the infection risk of reused needles, a continuing problem.

The test zeroes in on two forms of an enzyme involved in the degradation of amyloid, the protein that accumulates in the brain of someone with Alzheimer's, said Alkon, scientific director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute at the West Virginia University Health Sciences Center.

The presence of Alzheimer's disease is indicated by a steep imbalance in the ratio of the two forms of the enzyme, MAP kinase Erk, in skin cells that are exposed to bradykinin, an inflammation-related molecule, Alkon said. That imbalance is not seen in cells of people without dementia or those with other forms of dementia, he said.

The test produced good results when run on 60 tissue samples: 30 from a tissue bank, 30 from autopsy samples of people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, Alkon said.

"We have seen a correlation with the duration of the disease," he said. "The earlier it is done in the course of the disease, the larger is the abnormality."

Cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM): Melanoma of the skin is a malignant cancer of great severity. Although treatment is improving, melanoma still carries a significant risk of death. Between 50% and 90% of the burden of disease from melanoma estimated in the WHO report is due to UVR exposure.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the skin (SCC): This is another type of malignant skin cancer which generally progresses less rapidly than melanoma and is less likely to cause death or ongoing disability. Of the total SCC disease burden, 50-70% is attributable to UVR exposure.

Basal cell carcinoma of the skin (BCC): This skin cancer appears predominantly in older people and grows slowly by local spread. The incidence and mortality of BCC were estimated to be 50-90% attributable to UVR exposure.

Squamous cell carcinoma of the cornea or conjunctiva (SCCC): This is a rare tumour of the surface of the eye. Some 50-70% of the disease burden due to SCCC is attributable to UVR exposure.

Photoageing: Chronic sun damage is associated with the development of skin conditions called solar keratoses. On rare occasions, these are pre-malignant conditions. The burden of disease due to solar keratoses is 100% attributable to UVR exposure.

Sunburn: Sunburns may be severe and blistering, and the resulting disease burden is 100% attributable to UVR exposure.

Cortical cataract: Cataract is an eye disease where the lens becomes increasingly opaque, resulting in impaired vision and eventual blindness. Long-term sun exposure to the eye increases the risk of developing a specific cataract type called cortical cataract. Five percent of all cataract-related disease burden is directly attributable to UVR exposure.

Pterygium: This is a wing-shaped fleshy growth on the surface of the eye. 40-70% of the disease burden is attributable to UVR exposure.

Reactivation of herpes of the lip (RHL): Excessive UVR exposure causes immunosuppression and reactivation of the herpes simplex virus ("cold sores"). 25-50% of the disease burden is attributable to UV exposure.

On April 28, Devin Adair, a healthy, 21-year-old tight end for the University of Tulsa's football team, mysteriously died after spending a week in the hospital.

While it was obvious that he was very ill, he had no visible wounds to help doctors ascertain what was wrong.

When the autopsy report came back last week, the pieces of the puzzle came together: Flesh-eating bacteria had killed him.

Also known as necrotizing fasciitis, flesh-eating bacteria are potent enough to turn a wound as minor as a pinprick or paper cut into a massive infection causing amputation or even death. In Oklahoma, Adair's death is the latest of about a dozen people who have died from the infection since 2003.

One in five Americans will develop skin cancer, and a person's risk of the disease doubles if he or she has had five or more sunburns, according to a report in the April issue of the Mayo Clinic Health Letter.

Basal and squamous cell carcinomas, the most common and treatable types of skin cancers, had long been considered a problem only for people over 50, according to the report. But Mayo Clinic researchers found that the percentage of women under 40 with the more common type, basal cell, tripled between 1976 and 2003, while the rate of squamous cell cancers increased four-fold.

In the same study, the researchers found that just 60% of the cancers they identified occurred on skin frequently exposed to the sun, such as the head and neck, rather than the normal 90%. Most of the remaining cancers were seen on the torso. The researchers suspect this may be due to more widespread use of tanning beds.

Two types of ultraviolet (UV) light are implicated in skin cancers, the article explains. UVA, which penetrates deeper into the skin and impairs its immune defenses, is more responsible for melanoma, the most deadly type of skin cancer. UVB exposure causes sunburn, as well as squamous and basal cell skin cancers.

Tanning, dermatologists have found, makes the skin give off endorphins. These opioid compounds make a person feel good. They are the reason endurance runners report "runner's high." Could there really be such a thing as tanner's high?

The author of the 2005 report suggesting that frequent tanning may be a type of substance abuse is Richard Wagner Jr., MD, deputy chairman of dermatology and director of dermatologic surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Wagner says the idea came from skin cancer patients who couldn't stop tanning.

"Every dermatologist will tell you there are some patients we are concerned about," Wagner tells WebMD. "We know ultraviolet (UV) light can lead to skin cancer. Yet we all see patients with skin cancer who are always tan. We tell them not to tan on purpose, and some say, 'But doc, I like it too much. It makes me feel relaxed. I know I am getting skin cancer, but I can't stop.'"

So Wagner went down to the beach and gave addiction questionnaires to people who were sunning themselves. As many as half met the psychological criteria for substance-related disorder. That substance: sun tanning.

The melanoma on his leg was 6mm in depth.

He knows that, because of the delay in diagnosis, his chances of surviving the next five years are 50/50.

"My Breslow depth (a method for measuring the depth of the tumour, used to predict a patient's chance of survival) for the mole on the back of my leg was off the scale. It came in at a whopping 6mm depth.

"It was because it was bleeding that my family pressured me to get it checked out, I really thought it wouldn't have been as serious as it was.

The procedure, in my case, was no worse than having a root canal or tooth pulled. For others it might be more painful depending on the location of the cancer. First the doctor drew a line around the part of the skin where the growth is. Then she numbed me up and removed a small section of skin. Off to the waiting room I went.

After about 20 minutes the word came back - negative. There was no cancer. Does this mean I never had it? No. It means that most was probably removed during the initial biopsy and the rest might have been in the middle of the piece they cut out today. As the doctor explained, the lab technician looks at the top of the piece of skin they remove and the bottom to make sure there's no cancer left. Once I got the good word, I went back onto the table, gave me a bit more anesthesia and they sutured me up with a bunch of stitches. My guess is that I received about ten stitches.

More than 1300 Australians die each year from skin cancer and those who use solariums are increasing their risk of the illness. Solariums emit ultraviolet rays up to five times stronger than the midday summer sun, information from the Cancer Council shows. Despite this, young people are flocking to tanning clinics particularly in the lead up to summer.

Associate Professor John Kelly from the Victorian Melanoma Service said an increasing number of his patients were frequent solarium users.

"These are people who are paying the ultimate price for fashion," Prof Kelly said. "The irony is that by making themselves look more attractive, they're actually putting their health at risk and causing premature ageing."

He said many Australians falsely believed solarium tanning was safer than sunbaking.

A healthy skin sample is taken from the patient, and split in the laboratory to separate out the surface cells, known as keratinocytes.

These cells are then cultured for two to three weeks, and made up into a suspension.

At the same time other skin cell tissue from the patient is put through a different type of meshing machine, known as a meek mesher.

Instead of creating a string vest pattern of tissue, this machine cuts the skin sample into tiny little squares.

The cultured cells are then sprayed on to the small pieces of tissue and combine to create new skin for the patient.

However Colin Drummond, professor of addiction psychiatry at St George's Hospital Medical School, London, said: "I have concerns about calling everything in the world an addiction."

"There's a tendency to translate extremes of behaviour into addictions."

Professor Drummond said addictions meant a particular chemical mechanism occurred in the brain which determined a person's behaviour.

Such a mechanism had not yet been established for sunbathing, so the habit could not be labelled an addiction.

He said people tanned because they wanted to conform socially, not because they were addicted to the feeling.

Mayo Clinic researchers studied only basal and squamous cell carcinomas, cancers that are almost always curable and that together afflict 1 million Americans a year, according to the article, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Association. The cancers, caused largely by overexposure to ultraviolet light from the sun, usually develop in older people who have spent many years outdoors.

In the study, doctors focused on people under 40 in Olmsted County, Minn. From 1976-1979 to 2000-2003, the combined rate of the two diseases grew from 19 cases per 100,000 people to 33 per 100,000 — a 74% increase.

Although up to 90% of such cancers typically appear on the head and neck, doctors in the study found 40% of skin cancers on other parts of the body, a change that probably reflects the effect of excessive sunbathing.

Christenson says it's possible that some of the increase in basal and squamous cell carcinomas could be caused by increased screenings. But, she says, her findings suggest that tanning probably plays a more important role.

Basal and squamous cell carcinomas can be disfiguring, even if they rarely spread or turn fatal, Christenson says. And they kill about 1,000 to 2,000 people a year, the American Cancer Society says.

"For a preventable cancer, that's too bad," Christenson says.

Tests in laboratory dishes show that curcumin made melanoma skin cancer cells more likely to self-destruct in a process known as apoptosis.

The same team has found that curcumin helped stop the spread of breast cancer tumor cells to the lungs of mice.

Bharat Aggarwal of the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and colleagues treated three batches of melanoma cells, known as cell lines, with curcumin at different doses and for varying times.

The curcumin suppressed two proteins that tumor cells use to keep themselves immortal, the researchers write in next month's issue of the journal Cancer.