L’Oreal Group Will 3D-Print Human Skin to Test Cosmetics

Source: http://inside3dprinting.com/

(Engadget) — The L’Oreal Group has been growing skin since the 1980s. A 60-person team grows roughly 100,000 skin samples every year (that’s 5 square meters of skin or a full cow’s worth annually) at its lab in Lyon. The L’Oreal Group hasn’t tested its products on animals worldwide since 2013, instead relying on a predictive model that utilizes a “Reconstructed Human Epidermis” — basically bits of skin grown in a lab — to ensure that its products are safe.

Now, the French cosmetics giant is teaming up with 3D bioprinting company Organovo to create real human skin — or at least as real as human skin that comes out of an ink jet nozzle can be. Organovo’s NovoGen Bioprinting Platform uses a pair of printer heads, one for placing human cells, the other for placing a hydrogel support matrix, to create skin samples on a commercial scale. This reportedly is the first time the beauty industry has employed such technology.