Within the next five years, Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) researcher Anthony Atala aims to build a portable version of an inkjet printer capable of creating an entire organ on demand. They have just invested $250 million in this research. This portable version will print layers of skin tissue directly onto deep flesh wounds. For surface wounds, such as burns, the consortium is developing a handheld spritzer that sprays a thin layer of immature skin cells over the wound. These cells, called keratinocytes, are extracted from the patient's skin and stimulate healing in the wound. In a recent clinical test of the gun on 16 burn patients, all showed "excellent healing" after one to three weeks.

The conventional approach of grafting, in comparison, takes just as long but requires three times as much skin and often results in patchwork scarring.

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