In-situ wound healing model

This technology is a tissue culture method with controllable mimicry and patterning of the four phases of human skin wound healing (pre-injury skin, injured skin with stress-response, healing skin, and healed skin) using neonatal keratinocytes and fibroblast cells.

Unmet Need: Accurate modelling of in-situ wound healing for research use

Wound healing is a complex biological process that can be broken down into four major stages; pre-injury, injury with stress response, healing, and healed. The most common method to model wound healing in-situ is the “scratch assay”, in which a cell monolayer is divided with a scratched line and allowed to migrate and fill the space. While current methods offer high throughput testing, these assays do not accurately capture all four stages of wound healing; therefore, more comprehensive high throughput models are needed to study wound healing and evaluate potential therapies to improve healing response.

The Technology: Controlled wound healing model using 2D and 3D skinoid cultures

This technology describes a cell culture protocol that mimics the four stages of human skin wound healing using a mixture of human neonatal keratinocytes and fibroblasts, termed skinoids. Importantly, the cells are transferred between 2D and 3D cultures to promote accurate modelling of the cellular environment at each stage. This model can be used as a research tool to study wound healing and the effects of therapeutics, cosmetics, and genetic defects on skin healing response.

Applications:

• Organoid model of wound healing for research purposes
• High throughput drug screening platform for potential therapeutics for wound healing
• Tool to test safety and efficacy of cosmetic products for skin repair
• Research tool to study the genetic defects affecting skin cell adhesion/matrix and wound healing
• Research tool to study the effect of wound healing on skin cancers, cutaneous blisters, and other dermatological conditions

Advantages:

• More accurately mimics the wound healing process compared to classical scratch assays
• Easy to scale up for high throughput assays
• Can be used to study each stage of wound healing separately

Lead Inventor:

Yvon Woappi, Ph.D.

Related Publications:

• Woappi Y, Ezeka G, Vercellino J, Bloos SM, Creek KE, Pirisi L. “Establishing a High Throughput Epidermal Spheroid Culture System to Model Keratinocyte Stem Cell Plasticity” J Vis Exp. 2021 Jan 30;(167): 10.3791/62182

• Woappi Y, Altomare D, Creek KE, Pirisi L. “Self-assembling 3D spheroid cultures of human neonatal keratinocytes have enhanced regenerative properties” Stem Cell Res, 2020 Oct 9; 49(1): 102048

Tech Ventures Reference:

• IR CU24060

• Licensing Contact: Sara Gusik