Other uses of homologous skin grafts and skin bank bioproducts

Skin bank bioproducts have also been used for experimental indications, to study in vitro toxicology and in vitro skin biology. Recently the demonstration that de-epidermized dermis (DED) has all the characteristics of an excellent dermal substitute into which various types of cells can be introduced and made to develop, opens exciting new possibilities of research in the field of wound healing and tissue engineering. Our preliminary observations seems to indicate that CD34+ stem cells from umbilical cord blood can survive in DED and in a few weeks populate collagen bundles. The observation of tubular structures without lumina close to collagen bundles as well as clusters of epithelioid or fibroblast-shaped cells may represent aspects of differentiation of CD34+ stem cells. More detailed and sophisticated studies are clearly needed to answer all the questions that these initial observations pose. Anyway the 3-dimensional model proposed seems to be suitable for the study of the behaviour of peripheral CD34+ and perhaps also other types of stem cells in 3-dimensional dermal matrix.