Preclinical development of 3D Bioprinting for skin regeneration

Andrew Stevenson¹, Rahul Visalakshan², Kalani Ruberu³, Zack Artist⁴, Stephen Beirne³, Cameron Ferris⁴, Abbas Shafiee⁵, Mark Fear¹, Zhilian Yue³, Gordon Wallace³, Fiona Wood¹, Pritinder Kaur²,
¹Burn Injury Research Unit, UWA, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia
²Curtin Medical School /Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Bentley, WA, Australia
³Intelligent Polymer Research Institute, ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, AIIM Facility, Innovation Campus, University of Wollongong, North Wollongong, NSW, Australia
⁴Inventia Life Science, Alexandria, NSW, Australia
⁵Frazer Institute, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Abstract

While improving care, current therapeutic approaches for treating injury and scars remain suboptimal. The application of cells and matrix for wound healing is complex and whilst these approaches have improved outcomes, skin regeneration remains elusive. In this project, we developed a preclinical 3D bioprinting platform for printing cells combined with specialised bioinks to improve patient outcomes.
A porcine 3D bioprinted skin model was used, where 12 1×1 cm full thickness excision injuries approximately 5-8 mm deep were created on pigs and treated with 3D bioprinted scaffolds, with ReCell and Integra used as a control. 3D bioprinted scaffold were made from autologous dermal fibroblasts incorporated into a platelet lysate-based gelatin bioink, and 3D scaffolds were printed using a benchtop 3D REDI bioprinter. Autologous keratinocytes and Laminin isoforms were added on top of the 3D bioprinted scaffolds on the full thickness excision injury in pigs. The wound tissue was analysed using photographic assessment, flow cytometry, general histology and cytokines profiling to track the changes in the wound healing at day 3, 7 and 2 months post-3D-bioprinting.
The overall result from this project was the formation of bilayer organisation of the skin with improved or similar wound healing outcomes compared to the ReCell and Integra treatment wounds. Further, incorporating Laminin isoforms 521 and 525 was shown to have a pro-proliferative effect on epidermal regeneration. The progress achieved in this study will advance therapeutic approaches for patients following burn injury, and is a step towards our goal of truly scarless healing.

Biography

Dr. Andrew Stevenson is a Postdoctoral researcher at the Burn Injury Research Unit, part of the school of Biomedical Sciences at UWA. His main area of research is focused on enhancing regeneration of skin after burn injury, and is interested in the molecular and cellular biology of dermal fibroblasts.