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IT’S still a long way from the replicants in Blade Runner, but artificial skin containing sweat glands has been produced for the first time – and tested in mice. The hope is that, unlike conventional skin substitutes, the new skin will allow patients with large grafts to sweat to keep their bodies cool.

“This system promises to restore normal sweating activity,” says of the Burns Institute of the General Hospital of the People’s Liberation Army in Beijing, China. Whether that promise has been fulfilled remains to be seen.

To produce the grafts, Fu and colleagues seeded beds of collagen with immature skin cells called keratinocytes. To this they added microspheres of gelatin whose surfaces were loaded with sweat-gland cells extracted from donated skin samples plus epidermal growth factor, which triggers cell growth. After two weeks, layers of skin containing gland-like islands had formed.

When this skin was grafted to wounds 3 millimetres square on the hindpaws of mice, healing was faster and more extensive than with conventional skin grafts, and the wounds had almost vanished after six weeks. The researchers have not shown, however, that the sweat glands actually produce sweat (Biomaterials, ).

“Healing was faster than with conventional skin grafts, and wounds almost vanished after six weeks”

Biochemical engineer of University College London points out that successful treatment – with grafts made from skin cells alone – already exists. Adding sweat glands would make manufacturing trickier and raise the price with no guaranteed benefit, he says.

Fu, meanwhile, says that there is potential for adding other natural features to artificial skin, such as hair follicles and sebaceous glands.