Being able to live without a heart, lungs, or even a brain, jellyfish are among the most interesting creatures in the ocean. And new scientific advances are showing they may be even more fascinating than we think — they could be used to grow human skin.

A team from the Scientific Research Center of Yucatán in Mexico is currently testing whether jellyfish with a bell similar in structure and chemical composition to the dermis and epidermis of human skin can be used to create scaffolds for healing damaged tissue.

Nayeli Rodríguez-Fuentes, one of the study’s lead researchers, said their in-vitro tests indicate the species, Cassiopea andromeda, would be a safe and biocompatible natural skin scaffold.

“There are several methods to design skin substitutes, and all are equally valid,” Rodríguez-Fuentes tells Fast Company. “However, our proposal is to use a local natural resource. We take nature’s design and apply it to treat wounds.”

Although the research initially focused on finding a way to treat diabetic foot ulcers — a common occurrence in Mexico — the scaffolds could also be used for other injuries, burns or surgical issues.

The team began their in-vitro testing by collecting 100 jellyfish off the north coast of Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico. After collection, they were brought to the lab, where they were dipped in a salt solution and hydrogen peroxide to bleach and dry the jellyfish bells. Then they were freeze-dried and incubated with detergents to create spongy, decellularized structures.

Human skin cells were placed on the structures and were found to adhere and reproduce rapidly and safely, proving the jellyfish could be viable for scaffolding.

Commonly known as upside-down jellyfish, this species is found in the warmer coastal regions of the Caribbean and western Pacific. They can often be seen resting on the seafloor with their frilly tentacles sticking up, resembling anemones.

Because they aren’t free-swimming like other jellyfish, they could be easily grown in a lab instead of harvested from the ocean, Lucas Brotz, a jellyfish scientist at the Institute for Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, tells Fast Company.

“It is usually costlier to remove huge amounts of jellyfish and ship them to a location than it would be to simply grow them in a lab as they’re needed,” Brotz says.

More testing is needed to know for sure whether these jellyfish will be viable for skin tissue reengineering, but Rodríguez-Fuentes says his team is already advancing in their research.

“We are working on the escalation of the process and on patent procedures,” he tells Digital Trends. “The final intention is to commercialize the product, for which the project is registered in NOBI-Southeast, a program that Mexico has implemented to generate technology-based scientific companies and attract investors who join the project.”