Because it’s worth a try: L’Oreal and Organovo team up to 3D print skin

Cosmetics company L’Oreal is working with startup Organovo to 3D print human skin.

The French firm has said the printed skin would be used to test their products and in other areas of advance research.

L’Oreal currently use tissues donated by plastic surgery patients to grow skin samples.

This partnership will be the first within the beauty industry for Organovo though they have already made advancements with their 3D bioprinting.

Guive Balooch, Global Vice President of L’Oreal’s Technology Incubator, said: “Organovo has broken new ground with 3D bioprinting, an area that compliments L’Oreal’s pioneering work in the research and application of reconstructed skin for the past 30 years.”

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.

Its 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.”

L’Oreal, 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,” added Balooch. “[We] have the potential to transform the beauty business.”