Scientists identify key mechanism controlling skin regeneration

The outer layer of skin, the epidermis, is constantly turning over to replace dead or damaged cells throughout our lifetime. Skin stem cells need to continuously make decisions: either make more copies of themselves (self-renewal) or switch their fate towards differentiation. The molecular mechanisms controlling this process remain poorly understood. Now a research team has identified a molecular switch that plays an early and critical role in the skin stem cell differentiation process. …read more