Breakthrough model could transform grafts, healing wounds, treatment of skin diseases
Researchers at Australia’s University of Queensland have successfully grown fully functioning human skin in a laboratory, creating the world’s first model with its own blood supply, the university said Thursday.
The research team at the university’s Frazer Institute used stem cells to create a replica of human skin, complete with blood vessels, capillaries, hair follicles, layers of tissue, and immune cells.
What they produced is the only skin model anywhere in the world with its own blood supply.
Lead researcher Abbas Shafiee said the breakthrough, six years in the making, could be transformative for skin graft transplants, healing wounds, and research into skin disorders.
The development is expected to significantly improve treatments for burns, injuries requiring grafts, and inflammatory skin diseases.
"We took human skin cells and reprogrammed them into stem cells, which can be turned into any type of cell in the body," Shafiee added.
Co-researcher Kiarash Khosrotehrani added that the engineered skin could improve grafts as well as advance therapies for genetic and inflammatory conditions such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, and scleroderma.
*Writing by Aamir Latif
