New clue to controlling skin regeneration -- as well as skin cancer
Thursday, March 3, 2011 - 13:31
in Biology & Nature
How do organs "know" when to stop growing? The answer could be useful in regenerative medicine, and also in cancer where these "stop growing" signals either aren't issued or aren't heeded. Researchers in the Stem Cell Program at Children's Hospital Boston have now found a regulator of gene activity that tells epidermal stem cells when it's time to grow more skin, as well as a "crowd control" molecule that can sense cell crowding and turn the growth off.