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posted by martyb on Tuesday November 06 2018, @06:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the SCARab's-diSCARded-skin-skein-SCARcely-SCARs dept.

Phys.org:

A team of researchers at Huazhong University of Science and Technology has developed a silk protein-based gel that they claim allows for skin healing without scarring. In their paper published in the journal Biomaterials Science, the group describes their gel and how well it works.

Scarring due to a skin injury is not just unsightly—for many, it can also be a painful reminder of a wound. For these reasons, scientists have sought a way to heal wounds without scarring. In this new effort, the team in China claims to have found such a solution—a sericin hydrogel.

The gel used by the researchers was based on a silk protein—the researchers extracted sericin from silk fibers and then used a UV light and a photoinitiator to cross-link the protein chains. The result was a gel that adhered well to cells and did not trigger much of an immune response. The researchers note that it also has adjustable mechanical properties. They explain that the gel allows for scar-free healing by inhibiting inflammation and by promoting the development of new blood vessels. It was also found to regulate TGF-β growth factors, which resulted in stem cells being routed to the injury site allowing new skin to develop, rather than scar tissue.

Now you can better hide your alien subdermal implants.


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  • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Tuesday November 06 2018, @03:46PM

    by etherscythe (937) on Tuesday November 06 2018, @03:46PM (#758531) Journal

    Religion occasionally drives some very strange behaviors in otherwise apparently rational people. This tradition comes from that cultural baggage of "things we do, because that's just how it is." (We saw this very briefly with the nuclear family movement, but we're finding out conclusively that it takes more than two adults to shape a child into what they become). The rationalizations have also been wrapped in "health benefits" that really don't hold water, so to speak, in the age of indoor plumbing; and... aesthetics arguments. This is what the mind can produce when dogmatism is the first system of thought taught from a young age, and reason only afterwards.

    There is little doubt in my mind that the resistance to change is very much religious in origin, even if other rationalizations have since spawned from it. Some part of society clings to it as an identity, because many people need to belong to something bigger than themselves, the same way many of us cling to nationalism even though it's almost literally just a line in the sand, and we oversimplify reality to our detriment. This hubris has led many people to think they're going to improve on nature's form (or God's, ironically). Otherwise, we could have discarded this practice decades ago.

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