Safety, Regulation and Clinical Translation

Abstract

There is an urgent and challenging public health problem of repairing or replacing damaged skin. Getting the immune system to accept and tolerate the new skin is the main problem in grafting, since autografts are seldom possible. New therapeutic approaches, such as artificial skin substitutes, may eventually make transplants from donor skin less common. Research on skin graft transplantation and other forms of permanent skin repair has progressed significantly over the years. Alternative skin treatments range from stem cell therapies to bioengineered acellular or cellular skin substitutes to donor-cell treatments administered either prior to or after a skin transplant. Unfortunately, there is currently no skin substitute available that can avoid immunological rejection, notwithstanding the progress that has been achieved in this field. In this chapter, the existing techniques for restoring and replacing full-thickness skin, as well as the processes of skin rejection and tolerance induction, are described.