A Brief Overview…

We wish to address the shortage of a suitable temporary covering for large/severe burn wounds, by building a machine that will automate the production of an artificial live skin construct.

Towards Better Treatment of Burn Wounds

skin loss in burn wounds

The skin is the largest organ of the human body which not only…… protects us from infection and foreign substances. As such, the skin is an important part of our body. Patients that suffer from burn wounds are prone to dehydration and infection because of the loss of protective covering by the skin. This may lead to serious consequences such as sepsis and even death. As such, there is a need to cover burn wounds with dressings or skin grafts to keep the burnt areas hydrated and covered. 

current treatment options

Currently, hospitals are using skin from cadavers as a temporary covering over burn wounds. The cadaver skin will then be replaced when a suitable part of the patient’s own skin can be grafted. However, cadavers donors are limited and a shortage may mean higher prices for such a treatment. Commercially available synthetic dressings, such as Integra, are alternative wound dressings that consist of an inner collagen scaffold for dermis regeneration and an outer layer of silicone. Nonetheless, such skin constructs are acellular and not suitable for covering larger burn wounds.  3D printed skin is also a promising option for the treatment of burn wounds as skin constructs printed using bioink can match the structure of skin accurately. Unfortunately, 3D printed skin has so far only been used for cosmetic testing as the time taken to print a sufficiently large skin construct to cover burn wounds would be too long for large scale production. 

our vision

Our project aims to build a cell layering machine that would automate the production of a bilayered living skin construct. We hope for this machine to produce skin constructs more consistently than by manual labour and also at a comparatively efficient rate compared to existing 3D printing techniques. The final product that the machine will output is a bilayered skin construct consisting of an alginate-gelatin gel layer with the fibroblasts within it and a thin layer of keratinocytes.

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