3D bioprinters seek to mimic the complexity of human skin

Human skin has three main layers, hypodermis, dermis and epidermis, and a swarm of molecules and proteins, such as elastin, which makes it a complex organ and difficult to imitate, but not impossible thanks to the 3D printing.

Last year, Spanish scientists unveiled a 3D bioprinter prototype capable of creating "fully functional" human skin for use in research, testing with cosmetics, drugs and chemicals and in a future transplanted to patients; Now this model has been improved.

In the facilities of the Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M), on the Leganés campus, the multidisciplinary team led by José Luis Jorcano and Juan Francisco Cañizo designed a "more robust bioprinter, more versatile, reproducible and accurate "than the previous, with which the skin can be made" more complex and gradually more like the man. "

The first prototype that has been presented, in collaboration with the Center for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (Ciemat), Gregorio Marañón University General Hospital and BioDan Group, could reproduce the natural structure of the skin with a first outer layer , the epidermis, with another deeper and thicker, the dermis.

Now, says Jorcano, went further and "in a relatively short time, we think we will be able to produce skin with important molecules, such as hyaluronic acid, with different types of collagen and elastin A ", which will give resistance."

In addition, the skin also has structures, such as hair follicles – hair growth – or sweat glands, which are very complex and, although they will cost more to replicate, this machine can already begin to develop them.

To be able to do all this, a "biological badtail" of cells, proteins and growth factors is needed, which is what we call biotintas, which in this case, instead of the cartridges of Ink as in Ordinary printers are placed in syringes.

BioTan Group's biotapes deposit, patented and licensed by BioDan Group, is computer-controlled and clean on a plate that then goes to the 37-degree incubator, says Informe21.

The components are the same as for creating the skin by hand, but adapted to the bioprinter, which ultimately attempts to automate a process that can be done from the autologous skin – created to from the patient's own cells for therapeutic purposes, as in both cases the patient / donor cells should be extracted by means of a small biopsy, grown in the laboratory and multiplied. The process until the artificial skin can last two or three weeks, depends on its use.

With artificial skin made by hand have already been tested in patients with wounds to heal, and with burns; the next step will be to perfect it with this new bioprinter.

"From the therapeutic point of view, the problem is in the big burns, where the patients lose a lot of liquid". Juan Francisco Cañizo, of the Complutense University of Madrid and Gregorio Marañón, from where "all the material of the bioprinter was designed", paradoxically, "

In addition, the improvements introduced in this machine, although the main application today because today is making skin, they will allow in the future to create tissues that are not geometrically very complex. having reached a hundred per cent human skin, these cylindrical tissues, such as blood vessels, or a spherical shape, such as the bladder, could develop, for which we must wait.

Clinical use, however, is not the only one of this skin; there is another one, experimenting with cosmetics, chemicals, and drugs, which brings in $ 20 million annually. in the world, according to Jorcano.

This will be the area where this tec hnology will take off for the first time. The regulations are much simpler, says Alfredo Brisac, president of BioDan, a company that developed the first version of the product and already has its first customers.

The next step will be to produce frozen human skin dressings. emergency for burns or deep wounds, which could be on the market in 2019. Finally, the challenge will be to reduce skin production costs for transplants, still too expensive, according to Brisac.