There is no greater trauma than major burn injury, which can be classified according to different burn causes and different depths. More than 500,000 burn injuries occur annually in the USA per year [1]. Although most of these burn injuries are minor, approximately 40,000–60,000 burn patients require admission to a hospital or major burn center for appropriate treatment. The devastating consequences of burns have been recognized by the medical community, and significant amounts of resources and research have been dedicated, successfully improving these dismal statistics [2–4]. Specialized burn centers and advances in therapy strategies, based on improved understanding of resuscitation, protocolized and specialized critical care, enhanced wound coverage, more appropriate infection control, improved treatment of inhalation injury, and better support of the hypermetabolic response to injury, have further improved the clinical outcome of this unique patient population over the past years [4, 5]. However, severe burns remain a devastating injury affecting nearly every organ system and leading to significant morbidity and mortality [2–6]. Of all cases, nearly 4,000 people die of complications related to thermal injury [2].