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Progress and opportunities for tissue-engineered skin

Nature volume 445, pages 874–880 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

Tissue-engineered skin is now a reality. For patients with extensive full-thickness burns, laboratory expansion of skin cells to achieve barrier function can make the difference between life and death, and it was this acute need that drove the initiation of tissue engineering in the 1980s. A much larger group of patients have ulcers resistant to conventional healing, and treatments using cultured skin cells have been devised to restart the wound-healing process. In the laboratory, the use of tissue-engineered skin provides insight into the behaviour of skin cells in healthy skin and in diseases such as vitiligo, melanoma, psoriasis and blistering disorders.

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Figure 1: The structure of human skin.
Figure 2: An example of the clinical use of tissue-engineered skin.
Figure 3: Reconstruction of tissue-engineered skin using a synthetic scaffold.
Figure 4: Examples of laboratory uses of tissue-engineered skin.

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Acknowledgements

The author regrets that space restrictions preclude full reference to all those who have contributed to this field. Sheila MacNeil's research is supported by grants from EPSRC, BBSRC and the Wellcome Trust.

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  1. Department of Engineering Materials and Division of Biomedical Sciences and Medicine, The Tissue Engineering Group, Kroto Research Institute, North Campus, University of Sheffield, Broad Lane, Sheffield, S3 7HQ, UK

    Sheila MacNeil

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Correspondence to Sheila MacNeil.

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Sheila MacNeil is a director of CellTran, which has developed a wound-healing product known as Myskin.

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MacNeil, S. Progress and opportunities for tissue-engineered skin. Nature 445, 874–880 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05664

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