Dr. John F. Burke, at 89; creator of viable synthetic skin

NEW YORK - Artificial skin had been the holy grail in treating burn victims for a century when Dr. John F. Burke began wrestling with some of the perennial obstacles to making it: finding a flexible material that would protect against infection and dehydration, that could be made from ordinary substances, that would not be rejected by a patient’s immune system, and that would look like normal skin.

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