Dermatology and beauty product research and development and testing has been limited to animal testing, which in some countries has been banned. Because of increasing controversial issues surrounding animal testing of these dermatology or beauty products, there has been increasing interest in developing in-vivo like in-vitro models for skin research. ...

Recent advances in manufacturing techniques have enabled the development of platforms and devices to study tissues and cells within well defined 3D microenvironments. Current devices have many limitations, however, because they are primarily made with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). PDMS is soft, so it is difficult to create reliable fluid connections...