Scientists in Australia develop world’s most realistic lab-grown skin
In a fascinating discovery that could revolutionise the approach to skin grafts and wound healing, scientists in Australia have grown the most realistic human skin replica.
Scientists from the University of Queensland have made an incredible breakthrough, successfully growing the world’s first fully functioning human skin in a laboratory.
The novel skin organoids are so tiny they are visible only under a microscope but are the most realistic skin replica ever made.
The feat was six years in the making for a team of researchers from UQ’s Frazer Institute and was completed in collaboration with Queensland’s public Metro North Health. In the future, the development could help to revolutionise approaches to skin graft transplants and wound healing.
Scientists anticipate it will be particularly beneficial for researchers trying to cure hard-to-treat and even rare inflammatory skin diseases as well as more common conditions such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and scleroderma.
In science, rodents often are used to test therapies and disease progression. However, that is not always possible for skin disorders and diseases because the skin of a rodent behaves so much differently to that of a human. It’s why this discovery is so important.
“For many of the skin diseases out there, we don’t have any model to test them. First thing is that we can use this model to test therapeutics for disease modelling,” says Abbas Shafiee, one of the study’s two senior authors and a senior research fellow at UQ.
He says scientists used real skin to develop the replica.
“We took human skin cells and reprogrammed them into stem cells, which can be turned into any type of cell in the body. We placed these stem cells into Petri dishes and grew them into mini versions of skin, called skin organoids.”
The organoids include hair follicles and layers of tissues, but what truly sets them apart from previous skin replicas is that they include immune and vascular components, allowing them to mimic complex human skin functions.
The next steps are for scientists to test the technology using cells from patients with skin disorders.
“More patient cells in more conditions,” Shafiee says. “I think this is the best thing. That’s the first thing that we need to do, and then assess the validation – the functionality of our model – in assessing the drug response.”
That will need to be part of a separate study, dependent on the securing of more funding. Once that is complete, he considers the replica could have three main applications.
“The first one that we want to consider is disease modelling and drug development,” Shafiee says.
“The next one is wound healing. This could be used for wounds that are because of burns or wounds that are because of a trauma, so non-healing wounds like diabetic wounds.
“Third, it could also improve skin grafts and even for patients coming to hospital for scar treatment. We could use the patient’s own cells, reprogram them in the lab, develop a skin graft and put them back to the patient.”
The study’s other senior author is UQ clinical scientist Kiarash Khosrotehrani.
“Skin grafts are used to treat major wounds and burns, but their effectiveness can be limited and the risk of infection is high,” he says.
“This skin model will enable us to further progress those treatments, along with wound healing, regenerative medicine and precision dermatology. Skin disorders can be difficult to treat and it’s a real breakthrough to be able to provide hope for people living with chronic conditions.”
The findings are published in Wiley Advanced Healthcare Materials.
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