Researchers develop 3D printer capable of printing human skin

Years ago, the world was excited when researchers created a 3D printer that could produce skin for treating soldier burns. Now scientists at the University of Toronto, Canada, have announced the development of a portable 3D printer capable of producing human skin.

With the technology, it is possible to apply layers of skin tissue directly to patients for the purpose of covering or healing wounds. The gadget, the size of a shoebox, was built by a team led by PhD student Navid Hakimi, under the supervision of Professor Axel Guenther.

According to scientists, the printer is an alternative to a conventional skin graft, with the advantage of not requiring healthy skin to be removed from a donor and grafted to the patient. Instead, the small device - which weighs less than 1 kilogram - can be used as a white ribbon ejector, so it unwinds the “bio ink” skin tissue directly into the affected areas.

Although this portable 3D skin printer has not yet been tested on humans - only on rats and pigs - researchers believe this is the first device that can form skin directly on top of a wound, with an average time of only 2 minutes. "Our skin printer promises to tailor patient-specific tissues and wound characteristics. And it's very portable, " explains Navid Hakimi.

And it seems that the idea of ​​skin prints is not unique to Canada; Researchers at the University of Minnesota in the United States also used 3D printers to place the graft directly on the skin of patients.

Researchers develop 3D printer capable of printing human skin via TecMundo