On this date in 1944, the Harvard Medical School reported the development of synthetic skin. The skin, made from blood plasma, would be used to aid burn victims, who often must undergo grafts of their own skin to cover burned areas. In the early 1980s, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, combined collagen with shark cartilage and a polymer to create a synthetic skin that lasted longer than the cadaver skin typically used to protect burn victims. In the early 1900s, one company began marketing a synthetic skin produced from Teflon and silicone.

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