Tissue Therapies (ASX:TIS) has appointed Dr Stephen Mercer -- most recently managing director of Mercy Tissue Engineering -- as its new chief executive.

Dr Mercer is a registered medical practitioner, and has previously worked as general manager of Smith & Nephew Surgical and as a health industry specialist with IBM.

In recent laboratory trials, Tissue Therapies' VitroGro was shown to prompt higher rates of growth and migration of human skin cells than existing culture methods, which use foetal bovine serum or patient serum. VitroGro was also show to support the serum-free cultivation of corneal cells for the treatment of eye burns.

These results were presented by Queensland University of Technology researchers to the Australian and New Zealand Burns Association conference in Adelaide last week.