Skin Printer

A paper cut might heal in a few days, but larger wounds need a helping hand. Skin is a complex organ, and even our body’s natural scar tissue often fails to match the form and function of the rest of the body. Researchers are working on approaches to engineering replacement skin that is personalised and functional. A new study describes a bioprinting robot that might directly print the components of new skin onto a wound. The device makes a 3D scan of the wound and has multiple degrees of freedom to enable it to cover the area with a mixture of precursor cells from newborn mice and a supportive matrix gel that encourages growth. Tests on mouse wounds showed complete healing and functional skin tissue regeneration that closely resembled native skin (pictured, with stratified layers of cells), with key structures such as glands and hair follicles.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Wenxiang Zhao and Haiyan Chen, and colleagues
• Biomanufacturing and Rapid Forming Technology Key Laboratory of Beijing, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, People's Republic of China
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Bioengineering & Translational Medicine, February 2022