Health Boards
New drugs and cosmetics are currently tested on animals, but a team led by King's College London has grown a layer of human skin from stem cells which could pave the way for testing without animals.
Source: NO LINKS ALLOWED
Quote:
Stem cells have been turned into skin before, but the researchers say this is more like real skin as it has a permeable barrier.
It offers a cost-effective alternative to testing drugs and cosmetics on animals, they say.
The outermost layer of human skin, known as the epidermis, provides a protective barrier that stops moisture escaping and microbes entering.
Scientists have been able to grow epidermis from human skin cells removed by biopsy for several years, but the latest research goes a step further.
The research used reprogrammed skin cells - which offer a way to produce an unlimited supply of the main type of skin cell found in the epidermis.
They also grew the skin cells in a low humidity environment, which gave them a barrier similar to that of true skin.
Lead researcher Dr Dusko Ilic, of King's College London, told BBC News: "This is a new and suitable model that can be used for testing new drugs and cosmetics and can replace animal models. "It is cheap, it is easy to scale up and it is reproducible." He said the same method could be used to test new treatments for skin diseases.
Researcher Dr Theodora Mauro said it would help the study of skin conditions such as ichthyosis - dry, flaky skin, psoriasis or eczema. "We can use this model to study how the skin barrier develops normally, how the barrier is impaired in different diseases and how we can stimulate its repair and recovery," she said.
Research and toxicology director Troy Seidle said: "This new human skin model is superior scientifically to killing rabbits, pigs, rats or other animals for their skin and hoping that research findings will be applicable to people - which they often aren't, due to species differences in skin permeability, immunology, and other factors."
Source: NO LINKS ALLOWED
