No More Scars: Researchers Crack Code to Regenerate Human Skin

Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania may have finally found a way to get skin to regenerate using fat cells.

According to the researchers, it all lies in regenerating the hair follicles first. The fat will be regenerating after the follicles start to heal.

The human body proved itself impressive throughout years of evolution. It proved its capacity to carry out the complicated mechanisms that we need to make sure we survive. However, it appears the body has not perfected the process needed to fully heal the skin.

Of course, wounds heal. However, scar tissue more or less always remains. The team may have perfected the impossible: to allow skin to regenerate fully using fat cells -- particularly, adipocytes. This is the type of skin that regenerates after we get cuts that is filled with fat cells that allow it to blend easily to the rest of the skin as it heals.

According to Futurism, these scar tissues, made up of myofibroblasts, occur as the skin heals from deep cuts. Its different-looking than the rest of the body because there are no fat cells or hair follicles in these tissues.

Lead author Maksim Plikus, PhD, said in the University of Pennsylvania Medicine journal website that the findings show there's a window of opportunity after wounding to influence the tissue to regenerate rather than develop a scar. George Cotsarelis, chair of the Department of Dermatology at the University, explained that the key is to regenerate the hair follices first. They jumpstart the fat to regenerate in response to these signals.

However, the researchers just have to figure out where the said signals are coming from. They eventually came across a factor called the Bone Morphogenetic Protien, which instructs the myofibroblasts to become fat.

These were originally thought to be incapable of becoming different types of cell. However, their work shows they have the ability to influence these cells and be converted into efficient adipocytes.

The discovery is in itself impressive, but it should also be noted that the experiment is still in its early stages and only demonstrates a proof of concept.The process has only been proven to work in mice and human skin samples.

Achieving hair follicle growth in a wound attached to a living human may prove more difficult. But sould science find a way to do this, we may not have to worry about wounds leaving scars ever again.