A New Source of Skin for Grafts?

There are many conditions that may require skin grafts, including burns, infections, wounds and cancer. The gold standard is to harvest skin from another part of the patient’s body, which isn’t always possible, especially in the case of extensive burns.

Institute scientists have built a computer-controlled system to explore the possibility of “stretching” skin in the laboratory to create large amounts of skin for reconstruction. They used human foreskin, which is known to be more elastic than tissue in other parts of the body. The tissue was expanded incrementally in a computer-controlled system over 6 days to increase its surface area by approximately 100 percent while maintaining the structural integrity. The expanded skin contained viable and proliferating cells.

Because the stretched skin contains living cells, it would potentially contribute to healing, much the way a skin graft does.

This technique could allow a surgeon to take a small skin biopsy and expand it in the lab, creating a large segment for use in reconstructive procedures.