Using fat to help wounds heal without scars.

Using fat to help wounds heal without scars.Doctors have found a way to manipulate wounds to heal as regenerated skin rather than scar tissue. The method involves transforming the most common type of cells found in wounds into fat cells -- something that was previously thought to be impossible in humans. Fat cells called adipocytes are normally found in the skin, but they're lost when wounds heal as scars. The most common cells found in healing wounds are myofibroblasts, which were thought to only form a scar. Scar tissue also does not have any hair follicles associated with it, which is another factor that gives it an abnormal appearance from the rest of the skin. Researchers used these characteristics as the basis for their work -- changing the already present myofibroblasts into fat cells that do not cause scarring. The study showed hair and fat develop separately but not independently,that fat will not form without the new hairs, but once it does, the new cells are indistinguishable from the pre-existing fat cells, giving the healed wound a natural look instead of leaving a scar. more