When marine scientist Pia Winberg began researching how seaweed could help heal serious wounds, little did she know she'd one day have the type of life-threatening injury that could benefit from her work.

The former University of Wollongong academic began farming and processing Australian green seaweed five years ago and some of the extracts she produces are being used to print skin tissue with innovative 3D technology.

In February this year, Dr Winberg almost died in an industrial accident at her South Coast production facility.

She lost 30 per cent of her scalp when her hair was caught in a high-powered filtration pump.

Months after the accident, Dr Winberg hopes her scalp will regain sensitivity and hair growth. ( Supplied: Pia Winberg )

"The irony was I was making wound-healing extract when it actually happened," she said.

"I keep saying I should have just dipped my head in the tank when I was there."

Although she can now find some humour in the accident, it was deadly serious.

She lost two-and-a-half litres of blood at the scene and after being stabilised by paramedics was flown to Sydney by rescue helicopter.

Plastic surgeon Adrian Sjarif headed a team of surgeons that operated on her for six hours.

"Because the scalp had come off completely, it's not a situation where you can just stick it back on and stitch it on, it won't take," he said.

"It needs to have sufficient blood coming into it and blood coming out of it to keep it alive, and in order to do that you need to find adequate blood vessels to join together."

He was twice able to find and reattach tiny blood vessels to get blood flowing to her scalp again but both procedures failed within minutes.

"We realised the damage to the inside of those blood vessels was such that we were pretty much on a hiding to nothing to get that piece of scalp revascularised, and that's when we had to change tack and put a skin graft on," he said.

Dr Winberg has since had further surgery to try to stretch her remaining scalp over a 15-centimetre-diameter skin graft, on which she hopes to regain sensitivity and grow hair again.

New motivation for life-changing research

Her overwhelming feeling now is gratitude to the emergency teams who saved her life, the healthcare system and for being able to continue her life's work.

"I'm lucky in that I'm fully functional, my scalp wasn't something that damaged my thinking or my functions," she said.

"I don't feel stressed about it at all, just lucky to be able to move on.

"I guess I was always passionate about what I do but now I feel this is one of the hurdles of my innovation journey, which is unfortunate, but I'm very motivated just to continue on now."

The research into wound healing using seaweed extracts was not far enough advanced to help her own healing, but she said the injury gave this work new meaning.

"My injury was so rare and freaky there's not going to be much use for it in that space, but if you think about the wound-healing injuries, experiences in burns or the military in war, there are so many people suffering from wounds that can be healed through amazing processes," she said.

The tiny 0.5-hectare farm turbocharges the seaweed with waste products from a nearby ethanol plant. ( ABC Landline: Sean Murphy )

A three-year collaboration with the University of Wollongong's Smart Polymer Institute has proven that skin cells can be grown on green seaweed extract, which mimics human tissue.

Medical-grade extracts can be used as ink for copying skin with 3D technology.

"This means that human skin cells, when we're printing it in our new seaweed inks, they recognise it, they actually anchor the cells to the material and start to produce collagen and all of the things they need to create new tissue," Dr Winberg said.

"They were actually just missing a few really good inks and here we come along with this ink and can suddenly unlock a whole area of wound healing."

Next year Dr Winberg will expand her pilot seaweed farm near Nowra in New South Wales and upgrade a production facility, producing seaweed for food and medical products.

The Australian green seaweed farmed at Dr Winberg's facility can mimic human tissue. ( Supplied: Pia Winberg )

She said she was impatient for Australians to realise the benefits that could flow from a native seaweed industry.

"I really want to move forward fast now and start developing this as an industry, employ people here in the region in sustainable technologies and get to market with some solutions that can really help the world," she said.

"Once we get even bigger, there are opportunities like feeding animals and bio-plastics and new materials that can address all sorts of problems, like the ocean's plastic challenges."

Watch this story on ABC TV's Landline this Sunday at 12:30pm or on iview.