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Wound Reprogramming

New skin induced to grow at wound site by reprogramming resident cells

07 October 2018

Wound Reprogramming

If a person needs replacement skin – because of, say, a burn or a large ulcer – doctors normally graft skin from healthy parts of the body. It’s also possible, if a wound is particularly large, to grow a patient's skin cells into large sheets in a laboratory and use those to cover the wound. Neither of these approaches is ideal, however, as they can often require multiple surgeries. What if grafts, tissue culture and surgeries could be eliminated altogether? A recent breakthrough may one-day make that possible. This mouse skin (green) grew directly from the underlying mesenchymal cells (red) – ordinarily only capable of producing muscle, bone, cartilage and connective tissues – after a section of skin was removed from the animal and a cocktail of skin-specifying factors was applied. If this reprogramming approach is translatable to humans, it could be a faster and less painful way to regenerate skin.

Written by Ruth Williams

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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