SKIN MADE TO ORDER………ON A PRINTER ?

[Anonymous]

Skin made to order ….. on a printer?
‘Inkjet’ process may be available by 2010

The University of Manchester’s Brian Derby holds magnified tissue scaffolds that new skin would grow on. The actual scaffolds have cell sizes of 3 millimeters and would be clear instead of green. Derby and his team are experimenting with different scaffold shapes.

By manufacturing human skin cells using a printer similar
to an inkjet, scientists have taken a significant first step toward generating
new skin. The process, which could revolutionize the Treatment of major skin
wounds, could be ready for clinical trials in Five years.

While much research needs to be done, the technique is
promising, according to an expert not involved in the breakthrough.

Scientists expect to eventually build commercial skin
printers for hospital use. Doctors would take cells from a patient’s body,
multiply them and suspend them in a nutrient-rich liquid similar to ink. A
technician would enter measurements of a patient’s wound into a computer and
feed the suspended cells into the printer.

The cells would then be seeded on a plastic tissue
scaffold, which provides shape and stability to the new piece of skin as it
develops. The scaffold would also anchor the perfectly shaped piece of skin when
it’s applied on the wound, keeping the graft in place until it takes hold.

The scaffold would dissolve naturally over time, just as
some stitches do.

“The cells are the patient’s own cells, and the object is
to reincorporate them into the body,” project leader Brian Derby told
LiveScience.

Perhaps bones and
organs, too
Derby heads the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells
Project at the University of Manchester in Britain. He said that using a
person’s own cells is ideal because it will reduce scarring, and patients will
not need to take immunosuppressant drugs, as they do with some current skin
transplant procedures.

Derby’s team is using starter cells taken from patients
having hip implants at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, but the ideal situation
would be to take stem cells from a patient’s bone marrow and control how they
morph, a natural process called differentiation. Stem cells can become any type
of body tissue when properly directed.

The technology would allow printing more than one type of
cell at a time and, overcoming a current limitation, allow control over the
shape of whatever is grown. The shape of the scaffold determines the shape of
the end product.

“It would be possible to build up a structure using
different cell types mimicking the structure of actual skin,” Derby said. “You
can print as many cells as you have print heads. Our machine could print up to
eight different ‘inks,’ where the inks are cell suspensions, scaffold materials
or biochemicals.”

Such a printer could possibly generate bone for bone
grafts, or even whole organs, although these goals are farther down the research
road.

“In theory, you could print the scaffolding to create an
organ in a day, but we are not quite there yet,” Derby said.

‘Significant
achievement’
Ioannis Yannas, a professor at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, is the co-developer of the Dermis Regeneration
Template, the first “artificial skin” scaffold developed. It was given federal
approval in 1991 for use in plastic surgery and in 1996 to treat burns. DRT has
been used with more than 13,000 burn victims.

Derby’s research is a “significant achievement,” Yannas
said in an e-mail interview. “Dr. Derby’s process promises to greatly simplify
cell-seeding of scaffolds that are used to induce organ regeneration.”

It’s not yet clear, however, whether the technology will
go beyond production of skin.

“It remains to be seen whether the process can be used to
seed scaffolds that have been shown capable of inducing regeneration, leading to
restoration of organ shape and physiological function,” Yannas said.

[Author]

February 13, 2005 at 10:47 AM