Skin Procurement and Engineering

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The two major goals of Core B, the Skin Procurement and Engineering Core, are 1) to facilitate basic and translational research in skin biology through the acquisition of fresh skin and primary skin cells from normal and diseased humans and mice; and 2) to foster innovation in skin research through the engineering of normal and genetically modified human skin in vitro and in vivo. Fresh human skin and primary skin cells are highly valuable resources that help to extend skin research throughout the larger scientific community at our institution, evidenced by the large number of investigators outside the Department of Dermatology who have previously used our Core services and subsequently submitted new abstracts, publications, and grant applications on skin biology. By combining these highly utilized primary tissue services with highly innovative tissue engineering consultation and services, Core B aims to maximize our impact within an even broader scientific community. Our long-term objectives are to: (1) allow investigators both within and outside the Department of Dermatology to conduct research on skin biology more efficiently and effectively by centralizing high-volume or specialized technical services and providing the critical research infrastructure and institutional review board approvals for their use; (2) foster innovative exploratory projects and junior investigators in skin biology through our core services, with the goal of promoting new scientific collaborations, abstracts, manuscripts, and grants; (3) promote translational research by providing access to normal and diseased human skin samples that might not otherwise be available to non-physicians or have substantial administrative barriers to their use; and (4) integrate our core directors' research expertise into future core services to adapt to the emerging needs and opportunities of our membership. To accomplish these goals we will provide: (1) clinical and scientific expertise, administrative support, and service to procure fresh normal (adult or neonatal) and diseased human skin for physiologic and pathophysiologic studies; (2) scientific expertise, administrative support, service, and training to derive primary keratinocyte, melanocyte, and fibroblast cultures from fresh human and mouse skin samples; and (3) scientific expertise, administrative support, service and training to establish human skin xenografts derived from normal or diseased human skin, or 3-dimensional organotypic human skin reconstructs genetically engineered using lentivector-, shRNA-, or CRISPR/Cas9-based techniques.