Coming Soon: Human Skin You Can Print at Home
Revolutionary 3D-printed Second Skin could provide an easier, cheaper alternative for scars and topical wounds, and eventually for skin grafts.
By Abigail Klein Leichman JUNE 10, 2022, 8:40 AM
Imagine if you could pop a cartridge in your inkjet printer and custom print skin to conceal a scar or blemish instead of covering it with makeup or getting cosmetic surgery. Imagine if surgeons could print skin for burn victims that would put an end to painful skin grafts. This technology is under development in Rehovot, Israel, in the Hebrew University lab of serial entrepreneur and inventor Prof. Oded Shoseyov.
s described in his lab’s paper in Polymers, Second Skin is a nano-thin film that mimics natural healthy skin tones, traits, 3D structure and features such as freckles, beauty marks or tattoos.
The initial over-the-counter “digital makeup” product for home use would be like a temporary tattoo that wears off in 10 to 14 days as the skin naturally sloughs off its outer layers.
“You take a picture of yourself. Then you open Photoshop in your computer and draw your preferred makeup. Once you are completely happy with the result, you push the button,” Shoseyov explains.
The file would be transmitted to your existing printer in which the regular ink cartridge is replaced with a cartridge of keratin-melanin ink — the components of the top layer of skin – and the paper is replaced with nanofilm.