Human Skin

We use our human skin model to test lead formulations and screen them against a variety of parameters in human skin to ensure clinical success. We perform antimicrobial efficacy testing, biomarker assessments, and host cell toxicity on wounded or unwounded skin.

Model Overview

  • To assess inflammation we treat and incubate intact skin, take biopsies from the treated intact skin, and then perform ELISAs or cytokine panel assays to determine quantities of biomarkers.  
  • To test for efficacy against known human pathogens, experiments are typically performed on wounded skin explants. These explants are prepared by removing a small amount of epidermis from the center of a larger explant. The depth and size of these explants and wounds are customizable.
  • We also assess wound healing in the wounded skin model. At specific timepoints post-treatment, we analyze the biomarkers present in wounds and couple that data with histology.

Relevant Therapeutic Areas

Wound Care

Learn how ex vivo tissue models, in conjunction with multiplex assays, can shed light on wound-healing processes.

Porcine skin serves as a relevant model for wound care. The skin has comparable thickness, hair follicle density, and wound closure via reepithelialization.

By engineering wounds in our human skin model, we can investigate the wound-healing capabilities of your formulations by performing large screens of analytes predictive of wound healing in conjunction with histology.

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Inflammation and Biocompatibility

Learn how we can measure the inflammatory response of tissue to your experimental compounds.

The PMM offers a unique way to investigate inflammatory cytokine concentrations in a cost-effective manner. We can perform ELISAs and multiplex assays to determine whether experimental compounds are pro- or anti-inflammatory.

We use our porcine skin model to study inflammation by testing the tissue for known biomarkers associated with inflammatory processes. We can apply experimental formulations onto large or small areas of skin and then harvest uniformly sized explants with a biopsy punch. These explants are analyzed for inflammatory cytokine production.

Our human skin model is an excellent way to examine the influence of your experimental product on inflammation. Our wounded or intact human skin models will help determine whether your compounds have pro- or anti-inflammatory properties.

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Infectious Diseases

Find out how our customizable infectious disease models will help accelerate your preclinical testing to achieve your goals in a cost-effective manner.

Mucosal tissue is an ideal environment for microbial growth, making the PMM an excellent application for testing the efficacy of products to treat infectious disease pathogens. We can test for efficacy against planktonic and biofilm infections with this model.

Porcine skin testing is commonly used to test formulations or compounds that are applied to the skin (e.g., presurgical products). We can track efficacy against host flora or seed the skin with known pathogens and track how they respond to the compound. We can apply this testing to large or small areas of skin.

Our reactors serve as a testing platform for drugs and devices intended to inhibit biofilm formation on abiotic surfaces. We can determine whether or not, and to what degree, bacteria form biofilms in the presence of your materials.

Using our human skin model, we can perform research on known human pathogens. The most common organisms we use are methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, multidrug-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Acinetobacter baumannii. Infections can be planktonic or biofilm.

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