Integumen teams up with Rinocloud to develop 'Labskin-on-a-Chip'

(Sharecast News) - Integumen announced a cross-platform biophysics agreement with artificial intelligence (AI) developer Rinocloud on Thursday, in association with Cork Institute of Technology's Nimbus embedded systems research institute and its Cappa Photonics Laboratory, to develop 'Labskin-On-A-Chip' (LOAC) technology.The AIM-traded firm described LOAC as a "pioneering" animal free, clinical research skin-treatment test platform by exploiting photonics.It said labskin was grown on a microchip where light was generated, detected and manipulated, using lasers and fibre-optics on an electro-optical device.Labskin was already seen as a "valuable tool" for Integumen's pharma and skin care clients, with laboratory-grown human skin used for testing of skin products and treatments.It could be populated with harmful viruses, and tested using natural skin conditions with good and bad bacteria from patients.LOAC's 'real-time and hands-free' technology could monitor bacteria and virus growth or decline on labskin, the balance of good and bad bacteria during skin treatments, and the impact on the skin's microflora of skin care products and treatments, the board explained.Combined with the RinoLab/Labskin AI software tools, analysis of the data via the Labskin AI client portal could be fed into pharmacodynamic in-silico models and used in the pharmaceutical clinical research sector, Integumen explained.For clinical research, the long-term data accumulated would provide clinical data for new products and skin treatments.Labskin-on-a-Chip as a pre-clinical and post-clinical platform marked a "major step up" for all skin related disease treatments, Integumen claimed.The completion of the project over the next 12 months was expected to provide every dermatology clinic with a desktop ability to take a swab of the patient's own bacteria, place it on the Labskin, and provide the best course of treatment."This is an exciting cross platform development in artificial intelligence at Rinolab and Rinocloud," said Rinocloud chief executive officer Fin Murray."Our collaboration with Labskin for the AI platform and our work with educational institutions who use Rinocloud has opened up a major opportunity that is set to transform the lives of 3% of the population who suffer daily from skin diseases."Gerard Brandon, chief executive officer of Integumen described the agreement as being the "right time, right place, right people, right technology and the right thing to do"."In the short time we have been working with the team at Rinocloud we have identified many synergies that bringing together biology, physics, software and most importantly a can-do attitude."I look forward to working closely with the team to rolling this out in late 2019."