A few of months ago (July?) I saw an article on so called “resconstructed skin”. I was linked from the news article to L’Oreal’s lab Invitroskin where 3D constructed skin is developed. It appears that they were developing this for product testing. The technique is simple really: fibroblasts in collagen gel, keratinocytes seeded on top of matrix and allowed to differenciate. For a while during my PhD I wanted to set this up in the lab—but it is easier said then done! The keratinocytes gave me the most problems.
I wonder how effective the engineered skin is for testing irritation in cosmetic products though. They are using a life-dead assay to check for safety—but such skin does not contain inflammatory cells and would not show irritation. If cell death is observed during a testing, then I don’t think that product is safe to use at all! On the other hand if there are no cell death—can the product still be irritable but just not detected?
In my opinion; great idea, cool science, but there are definitely limitations..
hello,
there is a lot of this ongoing at EU level,
especially cell culture models for testing bone protheses, using cultures of fibroblasts (immortalised) or fibroblast-committed stem cells.
Many centres having care of burns use the reconstructed skin, cell culture layers. but the 3D culture is quite experimental…
BTW, L’Oreal launches a competition for women scientists every year, in september, winners get 15000 euro for research.
all the best
Palmiro
palmiro.poltronieri@ispa.cnr.it
Thanks for your comment. I have indeed seen many use of cultured cells for burns, also autologous ones such as MySkin by CellTran.
Re the L’Oreal women’s fellowship, too bad the deadline passed 2 days ago! Must now wait for next year…