Fight Aging!

Continuing investigation into the mechanisms of regeneration is producing a steady stream of minor improvements and practical learnings. For example, the potential for scar-free regeneration of damaged skin by mimicking aspects of the process of embryonic development:

Scarring in the skin after trauma, surgery, burn or sports injury is a major medical problem, often resulting in adverse aesthetics, loss of function, restriction of tissue movement and/or growth and adverse psychological effects. Current treatments are empirical and unpredictable, and there are no prescription drugs for the prevention or treatment of dermal scarring.

We have investigated the cellular and molecular differences between scar-free healing in embryonic wounds and scar-forming healing in adult wounds. We have identified Transforming Growth Factor beta 3 (TGFbeta3) as a key regulator of the scar-free phenotype in embryonic healing. Exogenous addition of TGFbeta3 to cutaneous wounds in pre-clinical (adult) in vivo models reduces early extracellular matrix deposition and these molecules are deposited with a markedly improved architecture in the neodermis, resembling that of normal skin. This improvement of structural organisation in the healing wound is self-propagating and leads to a reduction of subsequent scarring.

TGFbeta3 has completed safety studies and entered human clinical trials. Data from these studies have demonstrated that TGFbeta3 (Juvista) in humans is safe and well tolerated. Acute, local administration of TGFbeta3 (Juvista) significantly reduces dermal scarring in a dose responsive manner resulting in the regeneration of a skin structure that is permanently improved.

Manipulation of skin healing today, and one would hope far more impressive manipulations of internal organ regeneration tomorrow. Small steps on a long road. One potential future for the field of regenerative medicine sees very little in the way of stem cell therapies as we current understand them: instead of transplants, our existing cells are controlled by precise signals, manipulated into working the way we want them to.