Revitalise Your Skin

Your skin has the natural ability to do what some miracle creams promise: rejuvenate and regenerate. Tiny stores of stem cells – starter cells able to develop into any form of brand new cell – are stashed all over the skin, providing a constant replenishment service. How exactly these cells dictate regeneration isn’t understood, but a new study has identified a molecular management tool used by stem cells to coordinate between the stores. It also revealed that special vessels called lymphatic capillaries form a complex network between the pools of cells, which sit at the base of each hair follicle. Stem cells in the follicles (pictured, after the researchers rendered the skin transparent to view the network) secrete molecules to control the surrounding environment and synchronise growth across the skin – a discovery that could provide a new approach to tackling wound-healing defects and even hair loss.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Shiri Gur-Cohen and colleagues
• Robin Chemers Neustein Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Science, October 2019