As I've written about here before, Stanford scientists Michael Longaker, MD, and Irving Weissman, MD, are eager to find a way to minimize the scarring that arises after surgery or skin trauma. I profiled the work again in the latest issue of Stanford Medicine magazine, which focuses on all aspects of skin health.
My story, called "Scarship Enterprise," discusses how scarring may have evolved to fulfill early humans' need for speed in a cutthroat world:
"We are the only species that heals with a pathological scar, called a keloid, which can overgrow the site of the original wound," says Longaker. "Humans are a tight-skinned species, and scarring is a late evolutionary event that probably arose in response to a need, as hunter-gatherers, to heal quickly to avoid infection or detection by predators. We’ve evolved for speedy repair."
Check out the piece if you're interested in reading more about this or learning how scarring happens, or why, prior to the third trimester, fetuses heal flawlessly after surgery. (Surprisingly, at least to me, many animals also heal without scarring!)
Previously: This summer’s Stanford Medicine magazine shows some skin, Will scars become a thing of the past? Stanford scientists identify cellular culprit, New medicine? A look at advances in wound healing and Stanford-developed device shown to reduce the size of existing scars in clinical trial
Illustration by Matt Bandsuch
