Wearable engineered human skin that can be generated in curved, custom shapes

This technology is a wearable, 3D engineered human skin substitute that can be generated in custom shapes to fit curved and irregular parts of the body, and to model region-specific skin properties for drug screening.

Unmet Need: Personalized method for engineering skin substitutes that can be applied to curved features of the body

Current human skin substitutes are engineered as rectangular or planar sheets that do not fit curved, irregular wound areas. Implementation of planar skin substitutes requires extensive suturing to graft multiple patches on different parts of the body and limits their effectiveness for use on irregularly shaped body parts. Additionally, these constructs do not fully mimic the biophysical environment of the healthy skin due to their discontinuous boundaries, and do not capture region-specific skin properties due to their generic geometries, which are major limitations for their use in 3D skin modeling and drug testing.

The Technology: Wearable skin grafts and models that can be customized to curved body parts

This technology is a fully-enclosed 3D human skin substitute that can be engineered in custom shapes to be worn on irregularly shaped parts of the body. Use of this technology reduces the surgical time and number of sutures necessary to graft replacement skin to curved wound sites, and improves graft viability through pre-vascularization of the engineered skin. Skin scaffolds in curved and enclosed geometries determine the final desired shape of the engineered skin tissue and recreate the physiologically relevant mechanical forces of skin development. As a result, skin substitutes developed by this technology not only provide superior mechanical properties over the conventional method, but also mimic body-site-specific cellular and extracellular organization, and thereby enhance the integrity of the grafts in the areas exposed to high mechanical tension (e.g., finger joints). Compared to current skin substitutes, this technology provides more physiologically relevant, vascularized skin, which can be used for in vitro modeling of skin diseases and as a drug screening platform for topical or injectable therapeutics.

This technology has been validated in vitro and in mice.

Applications:

• Personalized skin replacement therapy (allogenic or autologous)
• Human skin model for cosmetic testing
• Human-relevant in vitro drug screen platform
• Research tool for evaluating drug delivery to or from the skin
• In vitro modeling of human skin diseases and wound healing

Advantages:

• Can be fabricated in customizable, arbitrary shapes
• Reduces number of sutures required for effective grafting
• Reduces surgical time required to graft skin replacement
• Improves graft healing time
• Mimics the physiologically mechanical forces of skin development
• Can be easily placed or worn over wound sites
• Provides superior mechanical properties compared to the current method
• Enhances extracellular matrix deposition compared to the current method
• Recapitulates site-specific cellular and extracellular properties of the skin
• Allows for direct perfusion and diffusion of nutrients
• Vascularization promotes integration and viability of skin grafts

Lead Inventor:

Hasan Erbil Abaci, Ph.D.

Patent Information:

Patent Pending

Related Publications:

Tech Ventures Reference:

• IR CU20263

• Licensing Contact: Dovina Qu