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U.S. medical researchers are using modified printers to produce skin for burn victims, the project's leader says.
"We started out by taking a typical desktop inkjet cartridge. Instead of ink we use cells, which are placed in the cartridge," Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C., told CNN.
The process may be five years away from clinical use, he said.
Scientists from Wake Forest, Cornell University and the Medical University of South Carolina are to present findings Sunday at an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington.
The Wake Forest research is funded by the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, which hopes to use skin printing to treat the wounded on the battlefield one day.
A small piece of skin is taken from the patient using a chemical solution. The cells are then separated.
"We expand the cells in large quantities. Once we make those new cells, the next step is to put the cells in the printer, on a cartridge, and print on the patient" without touching him, Atala said. "It's like a flat-bed scanner that moves back and forth and (puts) cells on you."
UPI
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