3D printed skin to repair wounds and not leave scars

For the first time, researchers in the United States have performed surgery on rats without leaving scars, a potential revolution in medicine.

Despite the cuts, the skin regains its original appearance, without those nasty blisters that cause scars. It is a technique developed by researchers at Penn State University in the United States. Its principle consists of closing the wound by 3D printing the lower layers of the skin, the dermis and the hypodermis. An advance that could be used for facial surgeries, for example.

We are not going to try to rebuild them identically, that would be too complicated. The researchers discovered that it worked very well by simply depositing, layer by layer, on the printer, a mixture of fat and stem cells (the famous cells capable of transforming into anything). As a result, after two weeks, the skin reconstitutes itself perfectly, without leaving the slightest mark. We even see the hair growing back. Which, until now, was completely unprecedented on an injury.

If scarred skin has this funny appearance, it is precisely because the injury destroys the hair bulbs and the small bags of fat that are under the skin. However, without these two components as guides, the skin will regenerate in any way and give an ugly scar. But with the researchers’ technique, the fat bags are reformed, as are the hair bulbs, so the skin becomes perfectly normal again.

Soon tests on skin grown in the laboratory

So far, the technique has only been tested on mice. But, it should, a priori, work the same way on humans. Which gives a lot of hope. Despite all the advances in reconstructive surgery, scarring has never been avoided. The next step will be testing, first on laboratory-grown skin, then directly on injured humans. If it works, the impact will go well beyond the physical aspect. A scar can not only be unsightly. But it can also awaken serious trauma.