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Biomedical materials

A restorative synthetic skin

Nature Materials volume 15, pages 828–829 (2016)Cite this article

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Synthetic elastomers designed to mimic the functional properties of human skin show potential applications in cosmetics, topical drug delivery and wound dressings.

Skin is the largest and most visible organ of the human body. Its essential functions include physical protection, temperature regulation, water retention and vitamin production. Skin also provides a sensory interface with our surroundings, and in a social and psychological context, skin plays a role in establishing interpersonal bonds and in defining a sense of self. From the perspective of materials science, skin is an exceptionally complex, time-evolving and self-healing multilayered system, with a hierarchical construction that incorporates critical features with length scales from nanometres to millimetres. The broad functionality of the skin is critical to health and wellbeing, although both can be detrimentally impacted by certain disease states, exposure to harmful environmental factors and, over time, by natural ageing. As a restorative strategy to address such problems, Robert Langer and colleagues1 now describe in Nature Materials a crosslinked polymer coating with a tailored composition to reproduce the functional properties of skin when applied topically. This thin, soft and transparent 'second skin' is able to restore the functional and aesthetic properties of aged skin to a state that more closely resembles its original, youthful form.

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Figure 1: Human trials of 'second skin' functional performance.
Figure 2: Enhanced skin barrier function and sustained skin hydration for subjects with dry skin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. John A. Rogers is at the College of Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA,

    John A. Rogers

  2. Guive Balooch is the Global Vice President of the Technology Incubator for L'Oreal Research and Innovation, New York, New York 10014, USA,

    Guive Balooch

Authors
  1. John A. Rogers
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  2. Guive Balooch
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Correspondence to John A. Rogers.

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Rogers, J., Balooch, G. A restorative synthetic skin. Nature Mater 15, 828–829 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4710

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