Science gets creative: 3D printed human skin

Hello curious boys and girls! We have a scientific news story that is as exciting as finding money in an old pants pocket. Imagine this: you’re walking, you get a nasty gash on your skin, but instead of worrying about scars and days of recovery, you have a solution that sounds like science fiction, but it’s real! Some eggheads at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (yes, they’re really good at that magical medicine stuff) have been playing with 3D printers to do something epic: print human skin. Yes, as if they were printing a giant poster, but in 3D and with skin!

These geniuses published a study called “Bioprinted skin with multiple cell types promotes skin regeneration, vascularization and epidermal ridge formation in full-thickness wounds” (long-winded, right?). The good news is that they created a 3D printed skin that not only heals wounds faster, but also looks and feels like real skin, nothing like looking like a robot or a zombie. The chief of these medical wizards, Dr. Anthony Atala, along with his partner, Dr. Adam Jorgensen, led the study. These guys are like the captains of the research team, and they’ve taken a big step toward healing horrible burns and wounds.

Until now, when you had a wound, the grafts available were temporary or left you with scary scars, but with this new technique, they created a real skin, with all its layers: the epidermis (the outer layer), the dermis (the middle one) and the hypodermis (the deep one). Not only that, when they put it through real tests, it formed blood vessels, behaved like normal skin and didn’t even look like you had a wound! Best of all, this is not just for burns, but for any kind of nasty wound. A big step for humanity and for those of us who are clumsy and get silly injuries!

Dr. Atala said something like, “Healing real wounds is a challenge, and this technology is helping us do it faster and more naturally.” In other words, they’re making new skin look great and function as if nothing happened, so folks, the next time you get a scratch or wound playing around, you could be one step closer to having brand new skin with no marks thanks to these high-tech 3D printers! Science at your service, my friends!