BBC – Researchers have made a scientific discovery that in time could be used to slow the signs of ageing.
A team has discovered how the human body creates skin from a stem cell, and even reproduced small amounts of skin in a lab.
The research is part of a study to understand how every part of the human body is created, one cell at a time.
As well as combatting ageing, the findings could also be used to produce artificial skin for transplantation and prevent scarring.
The Human Cell Atlas project is one of the most ambitious research programmes in biology. It is international but centred at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge.
One of the project’s leaders, Prof Muzlifah Haniffa, said it would help scientists treat diseases more effectively, but also find new ways of keeping us healthier for longer, and perhaps even keep us younger-looking.
“If we can manipulate the skin and prevent ageing we will have fewer wrinkles,” said Prof Haniffa of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.
“If we can understand how cells change from their initial development to ageing in adulthood you can then try and say, ‘How do I rejuvenate organs, make the heart younger, how do I make the skin younger?’”
That vision is some way off but researchers are making progress, most recently in their understanding of how skin cells develop in the foetus during the early development stage of human life.
When an egg is first fertilised human cells are all the same. But after three weeks, specific genes inside these so-called “stem cells” switch on, passing along instructions on how to specialise and clump together to form the various bits of the body.
Researchers have identified which genes are turned on at what times and in which locations to form the body’s largest organ, skin …
