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Discovery enables adult skin to regenerate like a newborn’s:
In a study, published in the journal eLife on Sept. 29, the researchers identified a factor that acts like a molecular switch in the skin of baby mice that controls the formation of hair follicles as they develop during the first week of life. The switch is mostly turned off after skin forms and remains off in adult tissue. When it was activated in specialized cells in adult mice, their skin was able to heal wounds without scarring. The reformed skin even included fur and could make goose bumps, an ability that is lost in adult human scars.
“We were able to take the innate ability of young, neonatal skin to regenerate and transfer that ability to old skin,” said Ryan Driskell, an assistant professor in WSU’s School of Molecular Biosciences. “We have shown in principle that this kind of regeneration is possible.”
[...] Driskell’s team used a new technique called single cell RNA sequencing to compare genes and cells in developing and adult skin. [...] The factor the researchers identified, called Lef1, was associated with papillary fibroblasts which are developing cells in the papillary dermis, a layer of skin just below the surface that gives skin its tension and youthful appearance.
A lot of work still needs to be done before this latest discovery in mice can be applied to human skin, Driskell said, but this is a foundational advance.
Journal Reference:
Quan M Phan, Gracelyn M Fine, Lucia Salz, et al. Lef1 expression in fibroblasts maintains developmental potential in adult skin to regenerate wounds, (DOI: 10.7554/eLife.60066)
See also: skinregeneration.org.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Thursday October 08 2020, @11:01PM
In a youthful ... rodent-like way? I'm strangely simultaneously turned on and want to feed you some peanut butter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @01:01AM (5 children)
This would be amazing if it transfers to humans for things like treating severe burns, the skin damage from some cancer treatments, and treating extensive scaring from past injury.
I suppose the vain will have a new amazing facelift alternative too.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday October 09 2020, @01:04AM (2 children)
Orthodox Jews can finally grow their own sustainably-farmed foreskins instead of harvesting them from blood libel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @01:27AM
You should expand your horizons, dude.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @01:27AM
Where's the fun in that?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday October 09 2020, @03:33PM
It wouldn't be just for treating burns and the vain. Your skin is by far your largest organ. Being able to reset it to a functionally younger age is likely to significantly improve longevity. Specifically skin thins as you age and becomes more permeable. This leads to increased mechanical injuries and oxidative stress. It is a huge part of the frailty from aging.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday October 09 2020, @11:48PM
Aah shit, do I need that. got burns on a quarter of my body where they had to cut off pieced of cooked meat before the put the graft on. So nice patches with no hair, no sweat glands, and no oil grands. Just paper-like non-stretchy "skin" that has a waffle pattern. don't give a crap about how it looks, but lemme tell ya - with no oil glands, lotioning it daily for the rest of my life so it doesn't rip is annoying as shit.
but I wouldn't be as happy as the post-wall thots who would no longer need to put on makeup with a contractor's paint roller.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 09 2020, @02:07AM (5 children)
It sounds very attractive, but until they've got a way to 100% dial this fountain of youth back to normal baseline on demand, I'm thinking I'll let other people do the human trials.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 09 2020, @03:05AM (2 children)
I expect that it will be used in skin cell cultures, for things like transplants. But I suppose that it might be a new treatment for baldness...even so, the technique would probably be skin grafts, and the graft cultured outside the body.
So if you need it, the option will probably be worth the risk. I expect, however, that this capability turns off to reduce the chance for cancers to proliferate. Fortunately, once the skin has grown, the capability is turned off, so the graft shouldn't need to have the switch turned on.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 09 2020, @10:12AM (1 child)
Based on a sample size of what, in how big a population, with how much genetic variation? Research mice are notoriously homogeneous.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 09 2020, @03:24PM
Based upon the way they ought to design the processing for skin grafts. Currently they use this process at all, so all we've got to go on is the way they should proceed.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @04:10AM (1 child)
Curing cancer is a smaller whale than stopping and reversing aging. Cancer survival rates are going up and the big guns aren't even out yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @04:36AM
Once you've got one, you've got 90% of the other. Cancer is a primary symptom of aging, and the processes that increase it's prevalence in the elderly are the same as those that cause aging.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @02:07AM
If a similar mechanism is found in other cells, this could be huge
‘ as well as preventing some of the aging process in skin’
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @02:35AM
Adult healing isn't too bad either. I lost part of my thumb to a bicycle side stand, and after a few weeks the wound had closed with only a scar visible in the print, and full restoration of feeling.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @05:20AM
Does it turn your skin orange, and does it involve fetal cell harvesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 09 2020, @01:04PM
it has no happy end:
Dan Well's Extreme Makeover is a satirical new suspense about a health and beauty company that accidentally develops a hand lotion that can overwrite your DNA.