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Modifying Inkjet to Print Skin

Research by the U.S. Army is underway to investigate using modified inkjet printers to print new skin cells on people suffering from serious burns.

Modified inkjet printers, guided by 3D maps of the affected burn areas, could actually place skin cells into place to rapidly speed up healing.

“The bio-printer drops each type of cell precisely where it needs
to go,” explains Kyle Binder, a biomedical scientist at the Armed
Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine’s Wake Forest lab. “The wound
gets filled in and then those cells become new skin.”

According to a video by the U.S. National Defense Education Program documenting the research, burns can count for upwards of 30 percent of battlefield injuries.

Watch the video.