Economies of scale apply to all endeavors, including the production of human tissue: "The high-tech production lines of [a] laboratory in Germany began moving this week turning out a unique product - human skin. Nicknamed 'The Flesh Factory' by the boffins who work at the Stuttgarter Fraunhofer-Institute, it aims to produce 5,000 circles of skin as big as a one-euro cent every month. Costing around 45 pounds each, when the skin circles are perfected they will be sold to hospitals and clinics around the world for life-saving operations. Project leader Professor Heike Walles, 48, has devoted her whole life to the goal of reproducing human skin on an industrial scale - to save human life and protect animals; it can be used for the kind of testing currently requiring the sacrifice of live creatures. ... Until now, methods of culturing tissue like that used for skin transplants have been very expensive. Most of the steps are carried out manually, which means that the process is not particularly efficient. ... The new production line is entirely mechanical and controlled by computers. ... The process works like this; a biopsy - a sample of human tissue - is checked for sterility. A gripper arm then transports the biopsy into an automated cutting device. The machine snips the biopsy into small pieces, isolates the different cell types, stimulates their growth, and mixes the skin cells with collagen. A three-dimensional reconstruction of the different skin layers is produced with the aid of a special gel matrix - and the skin is ready. In the final step, the machine packages the cells for shipment. Alternatively, the tissue can be cryopreserved - that is, deep-frozen and stored for later use."

Link: http://germanherald.com/news/Allan_Hall's_Germany/2011-04-13/647/The_Flesh_Factory_goes_online