Ruffner, Heinz, Graf-Hausner, Ursula and Stephanie, Mathes (2014) The use of skin models in drug development. Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews.

Abstract

Three dimensional (3D) tissue models of the human skin are probably the most developed
and understood in vitro engineered constructs. The motivation to accomplish organotypic structures
was driven by the clinics to enable transplantation of in vitro grown tissue substitutes and by the
cosmetics industry as alternative test substrates. Today a huge variety of 3D human skin models exist,
covering a multitude of scientific and/or technical demands. This review summarizes and discusses
different approaches to skin model development and sets them into the context of drug development.
Although human skin models have become indispensable for the cosmetics industry, they have not yet
started their triumphal procession in pharmaceutical research and development. For drug
development these tissue models may be of particular interest for a) systemically acting drugs applied
on the skin, and b) drugs acting at the site of application in the case of skin diseases or disorders.
Although quite a broad spectrum of models covering different aspects of the skin as a biologically
acting surface exists, these are most often single stand-alone approaches. In order to enable the
comprehensive application into drug development processes, the approaches have to be synchronized
to allow a cross-over comparison. Besides the development of biological relevant models, other issues
are not less important in the context of drug development: standardized production procedures,
process automation, establishment of significant analytical methods, and data correlation. For the
successful, routine use of engineered human skin models in drug development, major requirements
were defined. If these requirements can be accomplished in the next few years, human organotypic
skin models will become indispensable for drug development too.

Item Type:	Article
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Additional Information:	Scientific review concerning published literature.
Keywords:	PMID: 24378581 Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2014 Apr;69-70:81-102. doi: 10.1016/j.addr.2013.12.006. Epub 2013 Dec 27.
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Date Deposited:	24 Jun 2016 23:45
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2016 23:45
URI:	https://oak.novartis.com/id/eprint/11376