Biotech

A new handheld 3D printer can deposit sheets of skin to cover large burn wounds – and its “bio ink” can accelerate the healing process 🖨️🤕🔥

The device, developed by a team of researchers from U of T Engineering and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, covers wounds with a uniform sheet of biomaterial, stripe by stripe. The bio ink dispensed by the roller is composed of mesenchymal stroma cells (MSCs) — stem cells that differentiate into specialized cell types depending on their environment. In this case, the MSC material promotes skin regeneration and reduces scarring.

The project is led by Richard Cheng (IBBME PhD candidate), under the supervision of Professor Axel Guenther (MIE), and in close collaboration with Dr. Marc Jeschke, director of the Ross Tilley Burn Centre, and his team at Sunnybrook Hospital. Their successful in-vivo trials on full-thickness wounds are reported in the journal Biofabrication.

The paper is a major step forward for the team, which unveiled the first prototype of the skin printer in 2018. The device was believed to be the first device of its kind to form tissue in situ, depositing and setting in place in two minutes or less.

Do you think 3D printers are the future of biotissues?

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✍️ The happy Broadcast ()
🖼️ University of Toronto ()

📰 Source: University of Toronto Engineering news ()
🔸 Publication, “Handheld instrument for wound-conformal delivery of skin precursor sheets improves healing in full-thickness burns ” by Journalist