Skin Scaffolding

Beauty is only skin deep, so the saying goes. However our skin is more than window dressing for our innards. It’s our first line of defence against the outside world. When seriously damaged, say by deep burns, surgeons transplant skin from elsewhere to repair it. Unfortunately these grafts are often only partially functional. An alternative treatment, aiming to restore greater function, involves biodegradable scaffolds containing stem cells. The grafted scaffold encourages skin cells and blood vessels to grow. The longer this takes, the more likely infection will occur. Looking to speed this up, researchers tried using stem cells stimulated with a substance called lipopolysaccharide. Mice with skin damage given scaffolds (green in this skin section) containing stimulated stem cells (blue/red) had more blood vessels in the graft after one week than mice given unstimulated stem cells. This brings us a step closer to recovering fully functional skin in burn victims.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Tobias Kisch and Caroline Weber, and colleagues
• Department of Plastic Surgery and Hand Surgery, University of Lübeck and Fraunhofer Research Institution for Marine Biotechnology, Lübeck, Germany
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS One, November 2015