In the secret Labs … human skin manufactured by printer

This is an exciting series of innovation “In the secrets of the labs” that publishes the “Summer of Figaro.” The edition of July 21 is devoted to the manufacture of human skin by a start-up Bordeaux is in the spotlight: Poeietis

Led by Fabien Guillemot, PhD in Materials Science, Inserm researcher who launched 2 years ago in entrepreneurship, this start-up has developed a “3D bio-printer” that can print 1cm2 skin in 10 minutes! Although there are other 3D bio-printersin the world, that one achieves this exceptional output thanks to a “laser” technology to deposit the material where others use needles or ink jets. The jet that forms drops on the medium with a precision of the order of 20 microns of the size of a cell.

Then it takes a little patience … for about 3 weeks to get a “workable skin” “composed of dermis and epidermis” and that can “react” to conduct different types of experiences of pharmaceutical or cosmetic .

A windfall that this invention when it is known that France is the largest country in terms of R & D in the field of cosmetics! And investors are not mistaken … the last fundraiser of the start-up was 2.5 millions of euros ! leaving him two years of financial visibility.

And entrepreneur became the researcher but by expressing regret as criticism for contributing to the progress “I find it unfortunate that the scientific and technological risk-taking should not be more encouraged. Today researchers and project selection evaluation process for funding lead to the opposite effect: the support goes mostly to projects that do not come out of the box. After starting the project in 2006, we had to wait 4 years before publishing the first results on the bio-laser printing. Ambitious projects require resources, but also time. We must accept and French research, the status of researchers and quality, has a competitive advantage that is insufficiently exploited today. “