Sci-Fi Eye: Printing skin

According to a recent report in The Engineer, Mayo Clinic has developed a method of using human cells to ‘bioprint’ 3D skin models for use in studying inflammatory conditions, such as eczma. As science fiction author, my job is to take a concept and push it as far as it will go; and if you’re a regular reader of this column, you’ll know the idea of printing skin is exactly the kind of evocative headline I can’t resist.

At the moment, the technology is in its infancy, but my job is to ask ‘What if?’ So, let’s assume our capability to print using human cells as ‘ink’ continues to improve, and indulge in a little wild speculation.

A while back, I wrote about the development of haptics, with scientists and engineers attempting to produce machines and prosthetics than can ‘feel’ surfaces. What more sensitive instrument is there than human skin? Instead of seeking to mimic its qualities, could we instead find some way to incorporate printed human skin into machinery, to allow more sensitive and delicate operations? Could we wrap Martian Rovers in skin and transmit the data back to a user on Earth, allowing them to accurately ‘feel’ the surface of the Red Planet?

If we become capable of producing sections of viable skin, could we use cells from a burn victim to print them a personalised graft, reducing the risk of rejection? As the techniques become cheaper and more practiced, could we then move on to replacing damaged skin, covering scars, and maybe even replacing unwanted tattoos?

Face transplants are a complicated and lengthy procedure, with potentially life-threatening surgical and post-op risks. Could some of these risks be ameliorated if the new face was custom printed to be compatible and a perfect fit?

Okay, so we’re veering into territory explored in the 1997 John Woo movie Face/Off starring John Travolta as an FBI agent who ‘borrows’ the face of Nicolas Cage’s terrorist in order to infiltrate his gang. While the easy swapping of faces as portrayed in that movie is highly unlikely, it does raise a few questions.

At some point, assuming a continued improvement of printing technology, it may become possible to scan a human body and print out a duplicate using cloned cells as ink, to provide ‘spare parts’ for victims of horrific accidents. Would that duplicate be considered an individual in its own right? And how much of a human body can be replaced with printed components before the original can no longer be considered the same person? As with Theseus’s ship or Trigger’s broom, if you eventually replace every part of an object (or in our case, a person), can it still be considered the same object?

What if you could print a complete replica of a deceased pet or loved one? They would be identical in every respect, but would they be the same as the dog or person you lost? Would they be a replacement or a reminder?

At the time of writing this column, actors in the US are on strike, protesting against studios using AI scans of their likenesses to insert them, unpaid, into other movies. What would they think about the idea of a studio printing an exact duplicate from a cultured cell sample?

Getting wilder still, an individual printed in such a way would make the perfect assassin. Any forensic evidence they left at the scene of the crime would implicate the person whose cells were used as their original template. Even the fingerprints would be the same.

That may seem like a bad movie plot, but let’s look at this from a marketing point of view. We already know it’s possible to produce steak from cloned cells. If vat-grown meat removes the ethical objections to eating animal meat, might we one day find it also removes the moral concerns surrounding eating human meat? All you’d need would be a few cells from a celebrity, and suddenly rabid fans would be able to dine on cruelty free Harry Styles burgers and Taylor Swift hot dogs, or even leather jackets printed using cloned skin cells from famous movie stars. Unlike John Travolta, you may not be able to simply swap your face with Nicolas Cage, but maybe you could slip into a 100% authentic Nicolas Cage biker jacket.

Gareth L. Powell is one of the UK's most popular and successful science fiction authors. To date, he has written twenty published books and won or been shortlisted for multiple awards. You can find him online at www.garethlpowell.com