Beauty brand L’Oreal has plans to print 3D skin after partnering with startup Organovo.
The cosmetics company has the skin would be used in areas of research and in product tests.
This partnership will be the first within the beauty industry for Organovo though they have already made advancements with their 3D bioprinting.
Organovo’s technology has allowed the creation of living human tissues which imitate tissues in the body a reality, and using this 3D bioprinting they have been able to print a human liver.
Keith Murphy, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Organovo, said: "This partnership is a great next step to expand the applications of Organovo's 3D bioprinting technology and to create value for both L'Oreal and Organovo by building new breakthroughs in skin modelling."
Not everyone understands the need for such a thing, however. Adam Freidman, a consultant dermatologist, thinks 3D skin could be put to better use.
“I can understand why you would do it for severe burns or trauma but I have no idea what the cosmetics industry will do with it.”
Organovo announced the commercial availability of its 3D printed liver tissue and is among the first and few companies to offer 3D printed organs.
A pioneer in the field of printed organs, the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine prints human cells in hydrogel-based scaffolds and keep alive with a blood substitute.
Organovo’s method differs from other companies as they directly assemble 3D tissues without the use of a scaffold, although this has left some experts sceptical.
Alan Faulkner-Jones, a research scientist at Heriot Watt university, told the BBC: “It was unclear how liver-like the structures were.”
Despite this, he supports the plans if they were to be used more so for a medical purpose.
“It would be a great thing to have stores of spare skins for burn victims.”
Guive Balooch, Global Vice President of L’Oreal’s Technology Incubator, however, remains hopeful for what this means for the future.
“The potential for where this new field of technology and research can take us is boundless. [We] have the potential to transform the beauty business.”