Model of bio-printed human skin revealing a pigment spot (photo credits: Chanel)
For Chanel, 3D printing is not only a means of providing a differentiating element to her beauty products to stand out from the competition. The famous haute couture and cosmetics brand has also been able to appropriate this technology to advance its research. As part of a collaboration with the Lyon start-up LabSkin Creations, the French house has just produced a world first: the first bio-printed human skin revealing a pigment spot.
A feat from the laboratories of LabSkin Creations, a pioneering company in skin reconstruction since 2015. One of the vocations of this specialist in advanced tissue engineering of the skin is to produce tailor-made skin samples for manufacturers of cosmetology and pharmaceuticals. Skin models that play a key role at three levels: product safety, performance and durability. The 2013 ban on the sale of cosmetics tested on animals in the European Union has only increased the demand for these artificial skin models.
The bioprinting of which LabSkin Creations is one of the few players in the world to master a technology, offers the advantage of being able to produce more complex tissues, but also in a more precise, reproducible and automated way than more traditional tissue engineering techniques. Unlike most artificial skins which only reproduce the epidermis, the upper layer of the skin, those from LabSkin Creations also contain the dermis, the underlying layer. Thanks to 3D printing, it is therefore possible for him to reproduce characteristics as specific as age and its effects on the skin. The other advantage of its patented technology is that it allows it to reproduce the dermis and the epidermis in only 21 days of culture, which represents a reduction of half compared to the 45 days necessary in a traditional in vitro culture.
“this exclusive model allows us to explore and better understand the biological mechanisms linked to cutaneous pigmentary irregularities”
(photo credits: LabSkin Creations)
Never before realized, the skin model produced by LabSkin Creations for Chanel, illustrates this ability very well. Thanks to the tests that may be carried out on it, the French house will be able to optimize the development of its future anti-dark spot treatments. ” this exclusive model designed from human cells in their micro-environment makes it possible to explore and better understand the biological mechanisms linked to cutaneous pigmentary irregularities, to evaluate the effectiveness of preventive but also corrective active ingredients in order to select the most effective ones. explains the French brand.
If France can also boast of being the leading exporter of cosmetics in the world, it is also thanks to its know-how in terms of tissue engineering. On this subject, remember that the other cosmetics giant, L’Oréal, has not hesitated to bet on bioprinting either. For its part, the luxury brand has teamed up with another French expert in this technology: the Bordeaux start-up Poietis. Both partners aim for the reproduction of hair follicles.
Of course, LabSkin Creations’ expertise in bio-printed skin models is not confined to the cosmetics industry. The Lyon start-up has other ambitions that are just as exciting, if not more so, in the medical field. In collaboration with three other French actors, 3d.FAB (3D Fabric of Advanced Biology), a 3D printing service platform on the Lyon campus, the Skin Substitutes Laboratory of the Hospices Civils de Lyon, as well as the Molecular and Supramolecular Chemistry and Biochemistry Institute, the start-up is working on a direct 3D printing project on burn victims. Funded by the DGA Direction Générale des Armées (DGA), this 100% French program called BLOC-PRINT aims to advance the treatment of deep burns, whether for civilians or soldiers.
LabSkin Creations’ other expertise in adipose tissue engineering has led the company to co-create another start-up called Healshape. The innovation it brings also arouses a lot of hope, since it is aimed at all women who have undergone a mastectomy following breast cancer. The objective of this medtech is to offer a bioprinted breast prosthesis that allows the progressive reconstruction of the breast. Made from the patient’s fat cells and a resorbable hydrogel, it offers the advantage of being able to resorb completely on its own. The result is definitive and natural.
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