So-called “tissue engineering” refers to the farming of human tissue, mostly in the area of the skin. Until now, artificial skin, which is used for transplants after serious accidents or burns or for compatibility tests in the cosmetics or pharmaceutical industries, could only be produced manually and with extreme difficulty. In this way, usually no more than 2,000 pieces of skin just square centimetres in size could be produced per month. The “Factory for human skin” in the BioPoLiS bio-production laboratory belonging to the Frauenhofer IPA in Stuttgart can currently produce up to 5,000 thumbnail-sized skin models per month.
The concept sounds simple, yet the manufacturing process is complicated. A human skin sample is cut into little pieces and the individual skin cells are extracted. The isolated cells are sown in special cell culture flasks and multiplied over several days in an incubator at 37°C. The multiplied cells can be combined with a gel matrix to form a three-dimensional, multi-layer construct. After just three weeks the artificial skin has grown in size and is ready for safety tests.