Skin printing and auto-grafting

Abstract

An apparatus and method for the production of substitute skin that advantageously reduces the amount of donor dermal cells needed from non-wound areas of a patient having a wound to be auto-grafted is reduced by using all of the harvested skin cells. A 3D printer is used to construct a wound graft product from the harvested skin cells without wasting any of the harvested skin cells. In a case of an irregularly shaped wound, wastage of harvested skin associated with trimming is avoided.

1 - 17 . (canceled) 
     
     
         18 . A computerized skin printing system of, comprising:
 a quantity of living donor skin cells harvested from a non-wound area of a patient having a to-be-treated wound or tissue defect;   a three-dimensional printer that processes the quantity of living donor skin cells, wherein the three-dimensional printer is under control of a controller connected to the three-dimensional printer; and wherein the three-dimensional printer is supplied with both a quantity of living skin cells from the patient with the imaged wound and a quantity of material not from the patient with the imaged wound;   an imaging device;   a computer that performs steps of receiving a set of images taken by the imaging device of the wound or tissue defect of the patient and processing the imaged wound or tissue defect into a set of skin-printing instructions that are provided to the controller, and operating the three-dimensional printer to construct a customized skin graft product useable to be auto-grafteed onto the wound of the patient.   
     
     
         19 . The skin printing system of  claim 18 , wherein the quantity of material not from the patient with the imaged wound is collagen or another scaffold-building material. 
     
     
         20 - 53 . (canceled) 
     
     
         54 . The system of  claim 18 , wherein the donor skin cells are from a split-thickness graft harvested by standard dermatome techniques. 
     
     
         55 . The system of  claim 18 , further comprising a first 3D printer cell dispenser containing at least one selected from the group consisting of autologous fibroblasts, keratinocytes, ECM proteins, growth factors and cytokines. 
     
     
         56 . The system of  claim 55 , further comprising a second 3D printer cell dispenser containing at least one selected from the group consisting of GF, insulin, PDGF and eNOS. 
     
     
         57 . The system of  claim 56 , further comprising a third 3D printer cell dispenser containing lyophillized amniotic membrane.