New skin research could help to slow down aging points

Researchers have made a scientific discovery that over time it could be used to slow down the signs of aging.

A group has discovered how the human body creates the skin from a stem cell, and even reproduces small amounts of skin in a laboratory.

Research is part of a study to understand how every part of the human body is created, a cell at a time.

In addition to fighting aging, findings could also be used to produce artificial skin for transplantation and scarring.

Human Cell Atlas’s work is one of the most ambitious research programs in biology. It is international but focused on the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

One of the leaders of the project, Professor Muzlifah Haniffa, said it would help scientists to deal with diseases more effectively, but also to find new ways to keep us healthier and perhaps keep us younger.

“If we can handle the skin and prevent aging, we will have fewer wrinkles,” said Professor Haniffa of the Wellcome Sanger Institute.

“If we can understand how cells change from their initial growth to adulthood aging, you can then try and say:” How can I rejuvenate the organs, make the heart younger. How can I make the skin younger? ”

This vision is somewhat away, but researchers make progress, more recently in their understanding of how skin cells grow in the fetus during the early stage of human life development.

When an egg is the first fertilized human cells are all the same. But after three weeks, these genes in these so -called “stem cells” activate, passing together the instructions on how to specialize and accumulate together to form the various pieces of the body.

Researchers have identified which genes are activated at what time and in what positions to form the largest organ of the body, the skin.

Underneath the microscope and processed with chemicals, they look like tiny fairy lights.

The genes that convert the orange form the surface of the skin. Others in yellow determine its color and there are many others who form the other structures that cultivate hair, allow us to sweat us and protect us from the outside world.

The researchers have essentially received the instructions to create human skin and publish them in Nature magazine. The ability to read these instructions opens exciting capabilities.

Scientists already know, for example, that fetal skin is cured without scars.

The new set of instructions contains details of how this is happening and a research sector may be to see if this could be reproduced on adult skin, possibly for use in surgery.

In a significant development, scientists have discovered that immune cells played a critical role in the formation of blood vessels on the skin and then managed to mimic the instructions in a laboratory.

They used chemicals to activate and turn off genes at the right time and at the right points to artificially cultivate the skin from the stem cells.

So far, tiny skin flames have grown, from which they have sprouted small hair.

According to Prof Haniffa, the ultimate goal is to refine the technique.

“If you know how to build human skin, we can use it for patients with burns and this may be a way of tissue transplantation,” he said.

“Another example is that if you can build hair follicles. We can really create hair growth for bald people.”

The skin on the plate can also be used to understand how hereditary skin diseases develop and test possible new treatments.

The instructions for the activation and deactivation of the genes are sent throughout the developing fetus and continue after birth in adulthood to develop all our different organs and tissues.

The work of the Atlas Human Cell has analyzed 100 million cells from various parts of the body over eight years. It has produced plans of brain and lungs and researchers working in the kidney, liver and heart.

The next phase is to place the individual Atlases together, according to Professor Sarah Teichmann of the University of Cambridge, who is one of the scientists who founded and lead the Atlas human cells consortium.

“It is incredibly exciting because it gives us new ideas for physiology, anatomy, a new understanding of people,” he told BBC News.

“It will lead to a re -enrollment of manuals in terms of ourselves and our tissues and organs and how they work.”

Genetic instructions on how to develop other parts of the body will be published in the coming weeks and months – until we finally have a more complete picture of how people are manufactured.