Researchers discover a way to print skin cells

The researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have come up with a way to do replace skin grafting as a method for helping patients get skin back from serious injuries. They’ve developed a special method that uses an inkjet printer to print skin. Well it’s not to say that they can now print out skin that you can just place over a wound to heal it – technology isn’t that advanced yet (but it should get there someday), this special skin printer takes skin cells that have been mass produced from cell samples and “prints” those skin cells on the required area. These cells then develop into a layer of functioning skin over a short period of time. Using the printer is much better and less messy than grafting skin from another part of the patient’s body and the printing process can take just a few minutes. The printer is still many years away from use on humans, but the researchers are hard at work at completing it and even the Defense Department has invested $50 million in Wake Forest Institute and the project. Watch a video demonstrating the printer after the break:

George Wong
Categories: Medical
Tags: print, printer, skin