Accelerated Wound Healing: Breakthrough Treatments

Patients who undergo skin injuries endure hospital stays, infection and/or succumb to death; therefore, advances in wound healing aim to improve clinical practices underlying macroscale healing to effectively intervene in microscale pathophysiology. As a result, strategies that optimize wound healing have motivated the design of new therapeutic products. In a new report in Science Advances, Benjamin…

Artificial Skin: Sensing Touch and Proximity that Exceeds Natural Skin

Credit: The KonG/Adobe Stock As lovers might vouch, complex nuances of touch, including nearness sans physical contact and gradations of tactile pressure, convey a rich sensory experience and multi-dimensional cognitive pursuits. Intelligent interactions between biological entities or machines and organisms require artificial skins that can perceive fluctuations of intensity and pre-contact proximity. Until now, advances…

Targeting mitochondria in dermatological therapy: beyond oxidative damage and skin aging

The analysis of the role of the mitochondria in oxidative damage and skin aging has been a significant aspect of dermatological research. Mitochondria generate most reactive oxygen species (ROS) which, in excess, are cytotoxic and DNA-damaging and promote (photo-)aging. However, ROS also possesses key physiological and regulatory functions and mitochondrial dysfunction is prominent in several…

A Chronic Wound Model to Investigate Skin Cellular Senescence

Wound healing is an essential physiological process for restoring normal skin structure and function post-injury. The role of cellular senescence, an essentially irreversible cell cycle state in response to damaging stimuli, has emerged as a critical mechanism in wound remodeling. Transiently-induced senescence during tissue remodeling has been shown to be beneficial in the acute wound…

Evolution of the Facial Skin Microbiome During Puberty in Normal and Acne Skin

The composition of the skin microbiome varies from infancy to adulthood and becomes most stable in adulthood. Adult acne patients harbour an ‘acne microbiome’ dominated by specific strains of Cutibacterium acnes. However, the precise timing of skin microbiome evolution, the development of the acne microbiome, and the shift to virulent C. acnes strain composition during puberty is unknown. Schneider…

Researchers use skin-colonizing bacteria to create a topical cancer therapy in mice

In a study led by Stanford Medicine, researchers harnessed the skin’s immune response to bacteria to create an immunotherapy — delivered by swab — that treats aggressive tumors in mice. While studying a type of bacteria that lives on the healthy skin of every human being, researchers from Stanford Medicine and a colleague may have stumbled on…