Experiments with 3D bioprinted skin
A hospital institution in the city of Marseille in southern France hopes to set a global precedent within months of making skin using a 3D printer and then implanting it on a patient's body, thanks to a laser machine invented by a French startup.
It is a "real revolution", according to Florence Sebatier, head of the Cell Culture and Cell Therapy Laboratory at La Concepcion Hospital in Marseille, where a robotic bioprinting platform developed by Poitiers (from a Greek verb meaning "manufacture") has recently been installed.
"It is an advanced technological tool that will allow us to manufacture bioprinted skin that can be used in humans for the first time in the world. The first clinical trials are scheduled for the first quarter of 2022," says Sebatier, expressing "optimism" about the approval of the process by the French Medicines Agency.
The first transplants are scheduled to be performed on 12 patients, who are "young people with a high ability to heal" and "minor wounds".
They will be 'followed up for two years', which is the time required to check that 'things are settled'.
Research in recent years in cell biology and 3D printing technologies has paved the way for new therapeutic strategies.
The Cell Culture and Cell Therapy Laboratory was established 15 years ago and has become a reference in the development and evaluation of innovative regenerative cell therapies.
It benefits from the support of the Public Assistance Authority for Hospitals in Marseille and from funding from the provincial authorities.
All these advantages prompted Beuytis to choose the lab as a partner nearly two months ago to finish developing its 3D printer.
"We had to adjust the machine settings and improve the properties of the bioprinted skin. There was animal testing. In the end, everything we expected came true. We get skin with a good level of blood vessels, with very satisfactory mechanical properties," says plastic surgeon Maxime Abilan Lopez. Innovation as a "very powerful therapeutic weapon".
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