skin

E-skin ‘can monitor body’s oxygen level’

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Scientists say they have developed ultra-thin electronic “skin” that can measure oxygen levels when stuck to the body.

The goal is to develop such “skin” to monitor oxygen levels in organs during surgery, say researchers in Japan.

Tests on volunteers found the “skin” provided stable measurements of oxygen concentration in blood.

The device contains micro-electronic components that light up in red, blue and green on the surface of the body.

Scientists at the University of Tokyo are working on ways to display numbers and letters on the skin for health monitoring purposes.

 

Read at BBC News

Birth of the Skin Microbiome

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The immune system tolerates the colonization of commensal bacteria on the skin with the aid of regulatory T cells during the first few weeks of life, a mouse study shows.

 

he skin is home to millions of commensal bacteria and immune cells. Yet how the skin microbiome is established—in particular, why the immune system does not attack these bacteria—has been little studied. Now, a team led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), has shown that, to establish tolerance by the immune system, colonization of the skin by commensal bacteria occurs during the first few days after birth in mice. The team’s findings were published today (November 17) in Immunity.

“This is an elegant and well-executed study showing a regulatory T cell–mediated establishment of commensal-specific tolerance,” said Keisuke “Chris” Nagao of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, who was not involved in the work.

 

Read full article here

Researchers heal chronic wounds with skin from cadavers

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Human skin from cadavers that have had their cells removed can help treat wounds, researchers say.

This new treatment could prove especially helpful for chronic skin wounds, which are a growing threat to public health, scientists added. According to the National Institutes of Health, treating such wounds costs the United States more than $25 billion annually.

About 1 in 100 people in the United States will suffer from chronic leg ulcers during their lifetime. With an aging population and increasing rates of diseases linked to ulcers and other skin wounds, such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease, the prevalence and costs of such wounds are likely to rise in the future, said study senior author Ardeshir Bayat, a bioengineer and clinician-scientist at the University of Manchester in England.

 

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Human skin grown in lab ‘can replace animal testing’

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Skin grown in the laboratory can replace animals in drug and cosmetics testing, UK scientists say.

A team led by King’s College London has grown a layer of human skin from stem cells – the master cells of the body.

Stem cells have been turned into skin before, but the researchers say this is more like real skin as it has a permeable barrier.

It offers a cost-effective alternative to testing drugs and cosmetics on animals, they say.

The outermost layer of human skin, known as the epidermis, provides a protective barrier that stops moisture escaping and microbes entering.

 

BBC