Scientists have successfully grown what they say is the world’s most advanced human skin in a Queensland laboratory \u2014 and hope it could be used to study rare genetic skin disorders affecting thousands of Australians.<\/p>\n
Researchers at the University of Queensland’s Fraser Institute used stem cells to create the human skin replica, which contains blood vessels, capillaries, hair follicles, layers of tissue and immune cells.<\/p>\n
Institute director Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani said the skin organoids were developed over six years and could be transformative for skin grafts, wound healing and studying skin disorders.<\/p>\n
“We think that this is now opening completely new doors towards finding new treatments for a range of rare diseases that are affecting a lot of parents with sick children.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The researchers have spent six years developing the skin model. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Senior research fellow Dr Abbas Shafiee said it’s a step up from previous skin models that contain a thin layer of skin and one cell type.<\/p>\n
“Having those vascular and immune components allows us to model diseases in the lab and hopefully develop new medicines to target them,” he said.<\/p>\n
Studying skin disorders<\/p>\n
The researchers hope it can improve the study of a range of common skin disorders like psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and scleroderma, as well as rarer genetic diseases.<\/p>\n
“These organoid models that we have developed that have all the components of skin are now really going to open our eyes in terms of what’s happening and how we can fix things,” said Professor Khosrotehrani.<\/p>\n
The research could also help to improve skin grafts, which are vital for extensive burns, wounds or certain surgeries \u2014 although the researchers said that is still “down the track.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A lab-grown human skin organoid with blood vessels and hair follicles.\u00a0 (Supplied)<\/p>\n
Queensland has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world and more than 3,600 Queenslanders are diagnosed with melanoma every year.<\/p>\n
More than 350,000 non-melanoma skin cancers are treated annually, according to the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.<\/p>\n
“We always talk about burns and trauma injuries but what’s much more common is actually the grafting that happens during skin cancer,” Professor Khosrotehrani said.<\/p>\n
“What we’re thinking is that with our skin organoids that are now vascularised, that substituted skin on a patient will actually have sensation because in our skin organoids we have nerves, it would have hair, it would have sweat glands.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The organoids are grown in petri dishes from stem cells. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
A ‘useful stepping stone’<\/p>\n
Allison Cowin is a professor of regenerative medicine at the University of South Australia and a researcher working on an antibody therapy for people suffering from epidermolysis bullosa (EB).<\/p>\n
EB is a rare genetic disorder that affects fewer than 1,500 Australians and causes skin to be fragile and blister easily.<\/p>\n
It’s also known as the ‘butterfly disease’ because the skin of people with EB is so delicate it is likened to butterfly wings.<\/p>\n
Professor Cowin said the skin organoid has the potential to be a “useful stepping stone” in identifying what will work in the treatment of rare diseases like EB.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Professor Allison Cowin said the model could be a useful screening tool for developing new drugs. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“Being able to do it with their models would rapidly allow new drugs and new approaches to be taken in trials,” she said.<\/p>\n
“You don’t want to be testing things on those patients because that’s just not fair.”<\/p>\n
But Professor Cowin said it’s important not to get too far ahead or give patients false hope.<\/p>\n
She noted it would be “really complicated” to move from the lab to putting skin grafts on human patients.<\/p>\n
“There’s still a little way to go from the exciting results that they’re getting,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But the fact they’re able to start to make this much more complicated version \u2026 it’s really good.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Scientists have successfully grown what they say is the world’s most advanced human skin in a Queensland laboratory…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":163241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[94337,53025,94340,94341,94338,94339,94333,49443,815,94330,94335,2425,94342,1183,159,94343,29884,94336,94344,94331,94334,67,132,67034,94332,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-163240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-genetics","8":"tag-allison-cowin","9":"tag-blood-vessels","10":"tag-butterfly-disease","11":"tag-dermatitis","12":"tag-eb","13":"tag-epidermolysis-bullosa","14":"tag-fraser-institute","15":"tag-genetic-disease","16":"tag-genetics","17":"tag-graft","18":"tag-human-skin","19":"tag-laboratory","20":"tag-psoriasis","21":"tag-research","22":"tag-science","23":"tag-scleroderma","24":"tag-skin","25":"tag-skin-diseases","26":"tag-skin-disorders","27":"tag-skin-graft","28":"tag-stem-cell","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-university-of-queensland","32":"tag-uq","33":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115065626892997927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}