Personalized skin grafts to treat skin defects
Severe wounds in humans fail to regenerate but physiologically heal by scar formation. Worldwide, millions of people suffer from severe skin defects or diseases requiring surgical interventions to restore skin function. Existing therapies frequently leave these patients with permanent, painful, disfiguring, and debilitating scars. Scars may impair movement and growth and often require several follow-up surgeries, intense homecare, and psychosocial rehabilitation.
Human skin is composed of the epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. The components of the dermis control and regulate scarring. Today’s standard of care consists of harvesting a thin layer of the patient’s healthy skin, which contains the epidermis but only remnants of the dermis. Since significant dermis is missing, these grafts often develop into scars. Furthermore, in severe cases, in which most of the skin has been destroyed (e.g., severe burns), the shortage of healthy skin that can be harvested to cover the wounds presents a real clinical challenge.
During their time at Wyss Zurich, the CUTISS team, under the project name denovoSkin, advanced the development and manufacturing of personalized dermoepidermal skin grafts using only a small sample of the patients’ own skin. The team conducted phase I and II clinical trials in children and adults. Their long-term aim is to provide patients who suffer from large and deep skin defects with the first personalized and automated skin tissue therapy that is safe, effective, and accessible for patients.
