Coming Soon: Human Skin You Can Print at Home

AHA Publisher — Fri, 17 Jun 2022 07:41:02 +0000

Abigail Klein Leichman via Israel21c – Imagine if you could pop a cartridge in your inkjet printer and custom print skin to conceal a scar or blemish instead of covering it with makeup or getting cosmetic surgery. Imagine if surgeons could print skin for burn victims that would put an end to painful skin grafts. This technology is under development in Rehovot, Israel, in the Hebrew University lab of serial entrepreneur and inventor Prof. Oded Shoseyov. As described in his lab’s paper in Polymers, Second Skin is a nano-thin film that mimics natural healthy skin tones, traits, 3D structure and features such as freckles, beauty marks or tattoos. The initial over-the-counter “digital makeup” product for home use would be like a temporary tattoo that wears off in 10 to 14 days as the skin naturally sloughs off its outer layers. “You take a picture of yourself. Then you open Photoshop in your computer and draw your preferred makeup. Once you are completely happy with the result, you push the button,” Shoseyov explains. The file would be transmitted to your existing printer in which the regular ink cartridge is replaced with a cartridge of keratin-melanin ink — the components of the top layer of skin – and the paper is replaced with nanofilm. Keratin is a protein, while melanin is a family of pigments that dictate skin color. Keratin and melanin also have protective properties – after all, Shoseyov reminds us, skin is the largest organ in the body and protects us from sun, infection and, most importantly, dehydration. Shoseyov’s revolutionary ink containing these substances suddenly makes it possible to print skin. “The motivation was that we in Israel have many young people who have scars after experiencing trauma in wars. And I thought that we can do something better for them,” he said. “It’s not a huge number of people. Therefore, we think that the cosmetic industry may be also interested and that will increase the chance for such a technology to be mass marketed.” Skin Grafts When a large area of skin is destroyed by trauma or burn, possible treatments include grafting skin from the patient, from a skin bank or from lab-cultured tissue. However, grafting is a long, painful, expensive process. Furthermore, “the look and functionality of the skin is not the same as pre-trauma,” says Ilya Pittel, VP Business Development at Hebrew University’s Yissum tech-transfer arm. “What Second Skin does so cleverly is replicate the three-dimensional structure of the skin in which the outer layers are embedded in the dermis,” Pittel tells ISRAEL21c. Shoseyov explains that before a skin graft, surgeons “debride the dead cells from the burned or damaged tissue, cover it with a dressing and wait seven to 10 days until new tissue grows underneath. Then they take off the dressing – typically a very painful process — and then do the skin graft. And unfortunately, the end result is not ideal.” Second Skin could provide a graft that exactly matches the size and shape of the wound and the shade of the patient’s skin. It could be printed in the operating room while the wound is being debrided, Shoseyov says. While it’s printing, the surgeon would extract a few fat cells from the patient and take from them regenerative mesenchymal stem cells. These stem cells will be placed on the Second Skin “scaffold” and then the wound will be covered. Shoseyov expects that perfectly normal skin will replace the Second Skin as it is naturally exfoliated within two weeks. I’ve Got You Under My Skin But grafting is a much longer-term goal for Shoseyov and lab members Chen Nowogrodski and Ido Simon. For now, they are perfecting the process of home-printing skin. In addition, they’re working with Hebrew University nanotech expert Prof. Shlomo Magdassi on embedding electronics in Second Skin. Shoseyov points out that health monitoring is one obvious use case for e-skin. Another possibility is replacing the hand stamp that you get at amusement parks and nightclubs with a small second-skin patch that has an RFID tag to track your presence and charge your purchases. Recreational VR is another potential use case. With electronics embedded in an e-skin face patch, for example, you could “feel” cold wind whooshing past while you’re virtual skiing. Company #18? Yissum’s Pittel points out that “Second Skin can be 3D printed, which means that manufacturing it is versatile and can be carried out in a wide array of places — prefabricated in a pharmaceutical facility, onsite in a hospital, or at home for topical cosmetic applications. We are looking at commercializing this technology via a startup or by being licenced to a cosmetics or skin grafting company.” If it becomes a startup, Second Skin would be Shoseyov’s 18th company. Among other startups Shoseyov helped found are: Melodea (sustainable package coatings from cellulose nano-crystals) Paulee CleanTec (eco-friendly solutions for managing animal and human waste) GemmaCert (instant cannabis and hemp potency analysis) BioBetter (a tobacco-based platform to mass produce growth factors for cultivated meat) and SavorEat (robotic technology to dispense custom-printed fast food from plant-based sources). To read the original article click here.

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Revolutionary Spray-On Skin Is Better Than a Bandage for Wounds

AHA Publisher — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 08:00:10 +0000

Abigail Klein Leichman via Israel21c – Electrospinning may sound like something to do with disco music, workouts or pop art. Actually, it’s an electrostatically charged method to produce nanofibers for items such as layered filters. The Israeli startup Nanomedic is using this technology to revolutionize wound care. Nanomedic’s Spincare device – resembling a large staple gun – charges up a proprietary polymer from a disposable ampule and sprays it directly on the wound as a protective, flexible second skin. “Wherever the patient is, we can print our electrospun healing fiber matrix directly on the wound. That has a lot of advantages to enhance the healing process,” says Nanomedic CEO Chen Barak, who has a PhD in biomedical engineering and years of experience in electrospinning technology. “You apply it once so there is no dressing change needed. Patients can take regular showers after 24 to 48 hours. And when the skin underneath is healed, our layer peels off on its own,” Barak tells ISRAEL21c. No dressing changes and not touching the patient means less pain, especially for burn victims. The matrix is applied from about 20 centimeters (8 inches) away and adheres completely to any wound regardless of its shape or size. “This is very efficient even on faces, hands and moving parts of the body, and allows free movement unlike many kinds of dressings,” says Barak. The electrospun fiber used in Spincare bio-mimics the structure of skin tissue, thus accelerating healing and reducing scarring. Another big advantage is that healthcare professionals can assess the healing process without removing a bandage because the matrix becomes transparent after it is applied. Dr. Alexandra Schulz, a plastic surgeon in Cologne, Germany’s Clinic for Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery, says SpinCare “addresses the individual needs of our patients by providing them a maximum of mobility and comfort during their healing period. It fits perfectly each individual wound size and surface and can be applied easily by health care professionals.” Furthermore, says Schulz, “this dressing provides an ideal environment for wound healing in superficial to partial thickness wound depth. To my mind, Spincare is a modern solution for wound treatment.” A New Approach in Wound Care Barak explains that the Nanomedic device was first conceptualized by her team about seven years ago. The company was officially founded only in 2018. “Electrospinning machines are big and highly sophisticated. To use them for wound care, we needed to miniaturize the technology, which hasn’t been done before.” The unique handheld device can therefore be used not only in hospitals but also on the scene of emergencies. It can be stored on ambulances and in public buildings. “This is a completely new innovative product for wound care,” says Barak. “The market is full of dressings, but our device is the only one that manufactures the matrix directly on the wound, covering and protecting it during the healing process.” Even severe and complicated wounds need just one application. Developed and manufactured in Lod, the Tel Aviv suburb where Ben-Gurion International Airport is located, Spincare recently launched in Europe. “We are submitting an FDA proposal, and hope to launch in the United States in the second half of this year after receiving FDA clearance,” says Barak. Meanwhile, Nanomedic is continuing clinical trials and recently announced that Spincare will be used at Rambam Health Care Campus, a 1,000-bed hospital serving northern Israel. “Nanomedic’s Spincare system has many advantages, including protection against infection from contaminating bacteria and properties that allow it to optimally adhere to the injury in a way that regular dressings cannot,” said Prof. Yehuda Ullmann, chair of Rambam’s surgical department and director of its plastic surgery department. “The biggest benefit for patients is the avoidance of the pain often incurred from changing bandages, especially when treating children.” Barak points out that the same platform could be used in many ways, such as aesthetics and cosmetics, dermatology and surgery. “We can put additives in the ampule like antibacterial agents, collagen or silicone,” she says. For more information, click here To read the original article click here. For more articles from Israel21c click here.

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second skin Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Coming Soon: Human Skin You Can Print at Home

Revolutionary Spray-On Skin Is Better Than a Bandage for Wounds