Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
TORONTO, Canada — Burn victims may soon have an ingenious alternative to skin grafts. University of Toronto engineering doctorate student Lian Leng is leading a team developing a device that is capable of printing live skin tissue using a person’s own cells to create viable human skin.
The device forms a sheet of soft tissue made of alginate and the patient's own cells, or possibly stem cells. Alginate is a medically-approved type of algae. The material may be built up — made mostly from living cells — and may also be adjusted to varying thicknesses, textures and densities. The current direction of the research suggests that it may even be possible the new technology could lead to the development of a way to reproduce internal organs.
The 3D-type tissue printer could save lives and revolutionize burn care around the world. In addition, the printed skin is also more cosmetically acceptable than current skin grafting techniques, and would ultimately be much less expensive.
Another problem with current technology is that grafts are taken from undamaged skin. The skin graft process requires large amounts of skin to be removed from one section of the body and moved to another place on the body. Unfortunately, this increases the total area of the patient’s wounds and raises the risks for possible secondary infections and other medical complications.
Related:
How 3D printing will bring you artificial steak
Succulent. Juicy. Beefy. Doesn't even taste like it was grown in a petri dish. That's what you might be saying someday about the steak or burger on your plate. Intrepid scientists at MIT and University of Pennsylvania have put the marvel of 3D printing to good use (finally) and invented a way to make lab-grown tissue more realistic, and hopefully more edible.Leng first floated the idea of printing skin in her master’s thesis in 2010. The following year, she developed a prototype device to accomplish the task. Her team includes her doctorate supervisor Axel Guenther, a professor in the University of Toronto's Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering.
Marc Jeschke has also been collaborating with Leng. He is a burn surgeon and senior scientist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and Research Institute in Toronto.
Jeschke told the Globe and Mail, “We’ve been practising the same kind of burn care for decades, and frankly it’s barbaric, there’s tremendous, tremendous potential for this technology.”
The printing process uses a variable pressure device driving the material into a base stream of alginate. The alginate degrades over time, but provides a temporary matrix for the cells of the patient to establish themselves.
The cells are then placed in the reservoir — similar to ink cartridges — and then transferred into another reservoir containing calcium chloride. Leng says, the result “…a milky-white ribbon appears in a tank at the output end. The calcium ions bind to the alginate chain… (and become) a gel.”
We've been practising the same kind of burn care for decades, and frankly it's barbaric.
–Marc Jeschke
Next the tissue winds around a small turning spindle allowing doctors to manipulate the texture and consistency. This process allows doctors to adjust the consistency of the skin to resemble tougher muscle tissue or less textured or softer skin tissue.
Amazingly, the prototype only cost a few hundred dollars to make. One still significant problem is how potential human tissue could be harvested quickly enough to feed the printing device.
Jeschke says a trial with five to 10 human patients could occur in as little as two to three years. Connaught Innovation recently received grant monies from the University of Toronto for the project. It is the first step in the commercialization process, and the device has already been patented through the university’s Innovations and Partnerships Office and MaRS Innovations.
Leng also collaborated with fellow engineering students Arianna McAllister, Boyang Zhang and Milica Radisic, an expert in tissue engineering for heart muscles. She is a teacher in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. The umbrella organization for the project is the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering.
Mel Borup Chandler lives in California. He writes about science-related topics, technological breakthroughs and medicine. His email address is mbccomentator@roadrunner.com.
