Artificial skin

The skin is a complex organ that is difficult to replace when it is irrever sibly damaged by burns, trauma, or disease. Although autologous skin transp lantation remains the most common form of treatment in patients with signif icant skin loss, there are now a number of commercially available products that can be used to replace the skin temporarily or permanently. Here we de scribe several such products under the rubric "artificial skin," focusing o n two types of technology that have been applied to the problem of permanen t skin replacement.