Surgical device for skin therapy or testing

A method for producing a permanent cultured skin device for a burn patient comprising

• isolating at least one dermal cell type and/or at least one epidermal cell type from an uninjured area of skin from a burn patient,
• separately culturing the isolated dermal and/or epidermal cells,
• inoculating a biocompatible reticulated matrix with the cultured dermal and/or epidermal cells and incubating the inoculated matrix under conditions to form a cultured skin device within one month after inoculating the cells, and
• providing the device to the patient.

A cultured skin device prepared by a method comprising

• isolating at least one dermal cell type or at least one epidermal cell type from skin,
• separately culturing the isolated dermal and epidermal cells,
• providing the cultured dermal cells to a biocompatible reticulated matrix and incubating in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium containing strontium chloride (0.01 mM to 100 mM);
• linoleic acid/BSA (0.02 μg/ml to 200 μg/ml);
• insulin (0.05 μg/ml to 500 μg/ml);
• triiodothyronine (0.2 μM to 2000 μM);
• hydrocortisone (0.005 μg/ml to 50 μg/ml);
• a combination of penicillin (100 U/ml), streptomycin (100 μg/ml), amphotericin (0.25 μg/ml);
• ascorbic acid-2-phosphate (0.001 mM to 10 mM), progesterone (0.1 nM to 1000 nM) and epidermal growth factor (0.01 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml) for about 24 hours, and
• thereafter providing the cultured epidermal cells on the lamination layer of dermal cells to form the cultured skin device.

A method of producing a cultured skin device comprising

• inoculating a biocompatible reticulated matrix with cultured dermal cells,
• incubating the inoculated matrix under conditions to form a lamination layer of dermal cells,
• inoculating cultured epidermal cells on the dermal cell lamination layer, and
• incubating under conditions sufficient to form a cultured skin device.