Scientists Grow World's First Fully Functional Human Skin with Blood Supply

“This is the most life-like skin model that’s been developed anywhere in the world and will allow us to study diseases and test treatments more accurately,” Dr Abbas Shafiee from UQ's Frazer Institute said.

“We took human skin cells and reprogrammed them into stem cells, which can be turned into any type of cell in the body,” Dr Shafiee said.

“We placed these stem cells into petri dishes and grew them into mini versions of skin, called skin organoids.”

“We then used the same stem cells to create tiny blood vessels and added these to the growing skin. “It developed just like natural human skin, with layers, hair follicles, pigmentation, appendage patterning, nerves, and most importantly, its own blood supply,” he said.

Professor Kiarash Khosrotehrani said the engineered skin would help improve skin graft transplants and treatments for inflammatory skin disorders such as psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, scleroderma and other genetic diseases.

Reference: M. Mostina, J. Sun, S. L. Sim, et al. “Coordinated Development of Immune Cell Populations in Vascularized Skin Organoids from Human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells.” Adv. Healthcare Mater. (2025): e02108.