When it comes to skin grafts, it would be great to have a permanent skin graft that could be 3D printed on demand instead of taking it from the patient’s own body.
People are getting closer to that goal now, as scientists have now bioprinted intact vascularized active skin.
Recently, researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States have developed a new type of 3D printing technology. The technology, which creates active skin with blood vessels, has also advanced 3D printing technology.
Pankaj Karande, a member of the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies (CBIS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said: “Currently clinical treatment of skin grafts is more of a ‘fancy’ Band-Aid that can accelerate wound healing. , but eventually fall off and cannot bind to the host cell.”
Recently, they teamed up with researchers at Yale University to add certain “key elements” to these bioinks. These elements include human endothelial cells that line the inside of blood vessels and pericytes that wrap around endothelial cells. These are combined with ingredients typically found in bioprinted skin grafts, such as animal collagen and other structural cells.
Within a few weeks, the skin blood vessels the researchers printed with the new bioink began to grow. When these skin patches were grafted onto wounds in mice, the animals’ blood vessels began to communicate with those in the bioprinted skin, causing the grafts to fill with blood after four weeks.
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