A material that is used as a membrane during guided tissue regeneration procedures has to satisfy several characteristics and these include biocompatibility, semi-permeability, space making, the ability to undergo tissue integration and clinical manageability. Our brief review finds that chitosan (CS), which is a natural biopolymer, has a number of beneficial characteristics including biocompatibility, antimicrobial activity and pro-inflammatory activity, the latter playing an important role in the immune response. The antimicrobial activity of CS has been well studied using a wide variety of microorganisms and its effectiveness against bacteria seems to be due to destruction of the bacterial membrane, which results in the death of the microorganism. Furthermore, CS activates immune cells such as macrophages and dendritic cells and this then stimulates an antiinflammatory reaction and the apoptosis of macrophages; these events accelerate wound healing. Furthermore, CS membranes have high tensile strength and good permeability, while still having an appropriate rate of degradation. It can be concluded that CS is a good material for barrier membranes that are to be used during guided tissue regeneration.