WHAT
Our project's inspiration and importance
Inspiration
Minor skin scars from various sources, e.g. skin wounds, burns, diseases, etc., are prevalent worldwide. According to an international survey conducted by Amici et al. (2022), 48.5% of the tested individuals reported at least one minor scar, and one of the most prevalent locations of these scars was the face (18.7% in males, 15.9% in females). These scars can not only cause physical but also mental health issues. In a study by researchers at Swansea University, out of the 358,158 tested subjects, 15865 (4.4%) developed anxiety disorder, and 23387 (6.5%) had depression after scarring (Gibson et al., 2023). These numbers showed the urgent need for treatments against minor scars.
Artificial skin can be one of the potential solutions to this problem. This idea originated from Professor Ioannis V. Yannas at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor John F. Burke at the Shriners Burns Institute. The original idea was to induce skin regeneration using external means, e.g. mechanical stretch and growth factors. This technology has been widely developed and applied (Guo et al., 2022; Martin, 2023). However, a direct artificial substitute for the epidermal layer is still missing. This research gap inspired us to look for skin structures and find promising proxy biomaterials to generate direct artificial skin replacements.
Importance
On the practical side, our product is a single-layer durable skin substitute (Class II from Kumar's classification in 2008) with bacterial polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), jellyfish collagen, bovine elastin fibres, and algal alginate salts. If scarred patients select our product, they can fade their scars and do not have to remain monitored under hospital conditions. That can prevent them from being anxious or depressed while saving them time and costs. In addition, our biomaterials are natural polymers, not chemical ones, reducing the possibility of immunological rejections and resembling human skin. Finally, our product can avoid skin ageing by neutralising reactive oxygen species (ROS) with the antioxidant property of jellyfish collagen (Sudirman et al., 2023).
On the academic side, our product opened the first case of exploiting jellyfish collagen for artificial skin. Though previous research has reported that it can promote wound healing and counteract oxidation, none uses it for constituting artificial skin (Sumiyoshi et al., 2021; Sudirman et al., 2023). Therefore, our research is the first to use it as an artificial skin substitute component. If our trial is successful, it can lead to further research on using jellyfish collagen for cartilage, bone, etc. This substitution can aid people with innate deficiencies or post-natal disabilities.
References
Amici, J. M., Taïeb, C., LeFloc’h, C., Demessant‐Flavigny, A.‐L., Seité, S. & Cogrel, O. (2022) Prevalence of scars: an international epidemiological survey in adults. Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology. 36 (10), e799-e800. doi: 10.1111/jdv.18277.
Gibson, J. A. G., Dobbs, T. D., Griffiths, R., Song, J., Akbari, A., Bodger, O., Hutchings, H. A., Lyons, R. A., John, A. & Whitaker, I. S. (2023) The association of anxiety disorders and depression with facial scarring: population-based, data linkage, matched cohort analysis of 358 158 patients. BJPsych Open. 9 (6), e212. doi: 10.1192/bjo.2023.547.
Guo, Y., Song, Y., Xiong, S., Wang, T., Liu, W., Yu, Z. & Ma, X. (2022) Mechanical stretch induced skin regeneration: molecular and cellular mechanism in skin soft tissue expansion. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 23 (17), 9622. doi: 10.3390/ijms23179622.
Martin, J. F. (2023) Regeneration and rejuvenation of skin by a topical YAP activator. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 120 (32), e2309991120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2309991120.
Sudirman, S., Chen, C.-Y., Chen, C.-K., Felim, J., Kuo, H.-P. & Kong, Z.-L. (2023) Fermented jellyfish (Rhopilema esculentum) collagen enhances antioxidant activity and cartilage protection on surgically induced osteoarthritis in obese rats. Frontiers in Pharmacology. 14, 1117893. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2023.1117893.
Sumiyoshi, H., Okamura, Y., Kawaguchi, A. T., Kubota, T., Endo, H., Yanagawa, T., Yasuda, J., Matsuki, Y., Nakao, S. & Inagaki, Y. (2021) External administration of moon jellyfish collagen solution accelerates physiological wound healing and improves delayed wound closure in diabetic model mice. Regenerative Therapy. 18, 223–230. doi: 10.1016/j.reth.2021.06.008.