Smart biomaterials could unlock personalised treatments and sidestep animal testing.
University of Western Australia researchers are building a lifelike, full-thickness model of human skin in a bid to crack one of dermatology’s most overlooked problems – why skin stiffens with age and disease and how to reverse it.
Backed by nearly $500,000 from the LEO Foundation, the three-year project will use advanced biomaterials to recreate the layered structure of human skin, allowing scientists to dial stiffness up and down and watch how cells respond in real time.
The goal is to pinpoint new treatment targets and pave the way for therapies that restore flexibility, improve healing and potentially prevent damage before it starts.
Project lead Associate Professor Yu Suk Choi, from the UWA School of Human Sciences, said the work tapped into fast-moving advances in mechanobiology, a field revealing how cells sense and react to physical forces.
“Our skin changes as we age and one of the main reasons is its layers gradually become stiffer – a process that is even more exaggerated in skin disease such as skin fibrosis,” he said.
“Surprisingly, these mechanical properties have received little attention in skin research, but with new advances in mechanobiology we now know that skin cells sense and respond to these mechanical changes.”
Using “smart” biomaterials that mimic the natural feel of each skin layer, the team will manipulate stiffness to track changes in behaviour and regeneration.
“The insights gained may identify new treatment targets and support the development of ‘mechanotherapy’ – therapies that work by gently adjusting the mechanical properties of the skin to improve healing and reduce disease,” Associate Professor Choi said.
If successful, the platform could go further, enabling scientists to recreate an individual patient’s skin in the lab and test therapies before applying them in the clinic.
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That opens the door to highly personalised treatment plans for people with abnormal skin stiffness, from fibrotic disorders to severe scarring.
The implications extend beyond treatment. A realistic, lab-grown skin model could reduce reliance on animal testing in both medical research and product development, while also supporting the design of improved skin grafts for burns patients.
The multidisciplinary team includes burns specialist Fiona Wood, biomedical engineer Brendan Kennedy and bio-nanotechnology expert Iyer Swaminatha Iyer.
The project grew out of the Australian Research Council Training Centre for Next-Generation Technologies in Biomedical Analysis, a collaboration spanning Australian and international institutions.
Associate Professor Choi, Professor Wood and Professor Kennedy are chief investigators at the Centre, which is based at UWA and is a collaboration with the University of New South Wales, Monash University, the University of Surrey and industry partners.
By turning the mechanics of skin into a controllable variable, the researchers hope to shift how dermatological diseases are understood and treated, moving from passive observation to precision engineering of the body’s largest organ.
“The main purpose of the model will be to treat skin stiffening associated with fibrotic disease, but potentially any abnormal stiffness can be targeted by this,” Associate Professor Choi said.
