Human is a marvel of Engineering. I t is tough yet stretchy and pliable , and act as as an impermeable barrier against water loss, infection, and cell damage from the sun's ultraviolet rays. With this range of properties, it is a very difficult material to duplicate.
John F. Bruke, a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in United States, was looking for reliable Skin replacement for the treatment of burn victims, Skin is usually grafted from other parts of the patient's body,but in cases where the burns cover 50 percent or more of the body, often there is not enough healthy skin to cover the damage are.
In the 1970s Bruke termed up with loannis v. Yannas, a chemistry professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology , Who was studying a stretchy protein called collagen that naturally occurs in animal tendons. Bruke and Yannas combined collagen fibres taken from cowhide with long sugar molecules from shark cartilage to create a gridlike polymer membrane. They dried this membrane and stuck it onto a layer of viscous plastic.
The two layers, about as thick as a paper towel,offer a barrier against infection and dehydration while acting as a scaffold on which new skin cells can grow ,As the patient's skin grows back, the artificial membrane breaks down naturally and can be peeled away.The new skin is not scarred and locks like normal skin, albeit without sweat glands or hair follicles.
In 1981 Burke and Yannis proved their artificial skin worked on patients with 50 to 90 percent burns, vastly improving their chances of recovery.