ALBERTO-PAPPALARDO-AND-HASAN-ERBIL-ABACI-COLUMBIA-UNIVERSITY-VAGELOS-COLLEGE-OF-PHYSICIANS-AND-SURGEONS-released-SWNS

THIS PICTURE: Creating a "glove" of engineered skin begins with a 3D-printed scaffold and ends three weeks later with a construct ready for grafting. CREDIT: Alberto Pappalardo/Hasan Erbil AbaciVagelos College/SWNS --- SEE SWNS STORY SWNAhand --- Bioengineers have devised a way of growing skin in the shape of hands. The innovation would help surgeons when grafting artificial skin onto an injured body part. Like wrapping paper, engineered skin comes in flat pieces, which can be difficult and time-consuming to stitch together around an irregularly shaped body part. Columbia University researchers say they have solved this problem by devising a way to grow engineered skin in complex, three-dimensional shapes. It would make it possible to construct, for example, a seamless “glove” of skin cells that can be easily slipped onto a severely burned hand. The researchers reported their findings in a recent paper published in Science Advances.