Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering in Burns and Wounds

Skin is the largest tissue of the human body, and it acts as a protective barrier. If this barrier is lost due to injury wound healing is initiated, which is a complex repair process of orchestrated phases with the goal to restore homeostasis. Burns represent one of the most devastating traumas in which skin wound healing is crucial for survival. As current practices are associated with failures, new avenues were explored to accelerate and improve the healing process, e.g., stem cells. Stem cells are normally present in the cutaneous tissue, and play an important role in skin layers renewal and wound healing processes. Others and we propose that characterization of skin resident stem cells is the first step to further develop regenerative medicine-based treatments for tissue repair. Skin tissue engineering is an innovative field which contributes to apply new biomaterials and stem cells from the lab to the bench side, with an important role in translational medicine and skin tissue repair. The aim of this chapter is to describe the basics of the human skin and wound healing, and analyze skin stem cells in normal and pathological processes, focusing on skin tissue engineering research applied to aid in tissue repair.