Scientists are using new artificial skins to solve the problem of large-scale damage repair

as the largest tissue organ of the human body, it is very important to maintain environmental stability and resist bacterial infections. According to statistics, china's annual millions of people suffer from different degrees of burns, resulting in annual skin trauma repair and regeneration costs of more than 1 trillion yuan.
repair of skin damage, especially large areas of skin damage repair is a worldwide problem. In response to this difficult problem, Professor Chen Su of Nanjing University of Technology's School of Chemical Engineering and National Key Laboratory of Materials Chemical Engineering, in cooperation with Professor Wang Gefei of the General Hospital of the Eastern War Zone, has explored a new strategy, that is, the use of microflow-controlled jet spinning wire legal system to prepare large areas of high-strength artificial skin, in the abdominal wall defect repair shows great potential. The results of the research have been published in the international journal Advanced Materials., most of the research on skin repair has focused on the repair of small areas of skin. There has been little research on extensive burns and the protection of exposed abdominal organs. This is mainly due to abdominal visceral exposure, which can easily lead to intestinal infections, difficulty transporting nutrients, etc., thus preventing wound healing, so the preparation and application of artificial skin materials is the biggest challenge in the repair process.
In response to this difficult problem, Chen Su's team explored a new strategy for the preparation of artificial skin, namely, the preparation of large areas of biodegradable fibrin sealants, these fibrin as a load to form nanofiber stents, and use this as a basis for the formation of skin tissue.
For the traditional preparation of artificial skin materials, poor performance, poor breathability, fiber diameter, smaller than the surface area and difficult to scale, the research team used microflow control jet spinning method, prepared an area of 140 cm ×40 cm of large nanofiber support material. "This nanofiber stent is made up of nanofibers of a super-fine nuclear shell structure, with polyhetide/silk protein as the core and fibrinogen as the shell, with an average diameter of only 65 nanometers." The first author of the aforementioned paper, Nanjing University of Technology doctoral student Cui Wei introduced, with nanofiber stent as the base, sprayed on the substrate of clotting enzymes, can react with the fibrinogen on the surface of the stent, on the surface of the nanofiber stent to form a adhesive called fibrin gel, directly glued to the wound, no need to be stitched.
because of the small diameter of the fiber, it is larger than the surface area, fibrinogen and gels react more efficiently, while fibrin gels also promote the amplification of fibroblasts.
" this stage of the formation of a composite fibrin gel-nanofibre stent, we call it artificial skin, this artificial skin has a certain breathability, excellent mechanical strength and rapid in vivo degradation speed, when the wound is fully healed, the unused artificial skin material will automatically degrade. Cui said.the process of forming skin tissue, but also to the subject group to bring surprises. "In the experiment, we found new tissue, granules, new blood vessels, and the wound slowly contracted, indicating that the process of repairing the skin tissue has been completed. This is mainly due to the fact that the fibrin gel adhesives we form have antibacterial anti-infective effects and promote the formation of new blood vessels, which facilitates the transport of nutrients to skin tissue. Yu Garfei, co-first author of the aforementioned paper and a master's student at Nanjing Medical University, said.
in the next experiment, the team also found hair follicles on the regenerative skin. "This indicates the final formation of the new skin." Yu Addfei introduced that hair follicles are important ancillary organs of the skin, when the entire layer of the skin is defective, the body repair is often filled by the connective tissue of the hair follicle-free structure, so that it loses the structure and function of the original tissue, forming incomplete pathological regeneration. The regeneration of hair follicles has proved that the regenerative tissue with the same structure and function as the skin tissue is formed, and the perfect regeneration of the skin is realized.
" live study shows that our artificial skin material can successfully repair large areas of skin defects in the abdomen of rats, indicating that artificial skin material can quickly repair large areas of abdominal wall defects and promote wound tissue regeneration. Chen Su said the study provides an easy way for large-scale skin regeneration, which will show broad application prospects in areas such as abdominal wall defect repair.