develop insects as models study wound healing, infection and the wound microbiome.

Burn wounds are extremely prevalent, almost everyone experiences a thermal injury during their lifetime. Burns are divided into degrees depending on the depth of the tissues that are being affected. Minor or first degree burns usually heal without any complications. However, once the thermal injury is sustained to deeper skin layers and with the increase of the burn surface area many challenges arise. Severe burns negatively affect most body systems, in particular the immune system, making the patient immune-compromised. This increases the chance of the burn wound becoming infected (Branski et al., 2009). Burn wound infection is the leading cause of mortality among burn survivors (Akers et al., 2019). In addition to that, it can lead to autograph failures as well as longer treatment courses. This puts a significant
burden on the healthcare systems and the patient's wellbeing, which makes burn research a priority.The nature of burn wounds is complex due to a multi-system damage that it induces; therefore,it is impossible to recreate in vitro (Fransen et al., 2016). A number of in vivo models have been established to study the burn wound and infection. One of the most widely used models is murine. It is well-established and has already greatly improved our understanding of the burn physiology and pathology. The other well-studied model is the porcine model. Due to similarities in physiology and anatomy to humans, it has provided invaluable insights into burn
injury and infection. The porcine model has also been used as ex vivo model (pig skin explants) to study the burn injury. Some studies have been conducted on canine and rabbit models as well. The abovementioned models have a multitude of advantages to them, ranging from body system similarities to versatility of the model organism. However, they have a few disadvantages in common such as: 1) they are strictly ethically regulated; 2) the size of the experimental cohort is very limited; 3) they are costly; among others. In addition to that, the burn wound injury is a severe and morbid condition which is very distressing to the animal
(Abdullahi et al., 2014). This creates additional hurdles for researchers and therefore limits the burn wound research.