The mouth’s curative superpowers (2024)

OUTLOOK
27 October 2021

Wounds in the mouth heal faster than in skin — and without scarring. Could unravelling the mechanisms that drive regeneration in the oral cavity lead to better wound therapies?

Natalie Healey⁰

Natalie Healey
1. Natalie Healey is a journalist in London.
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At the US National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, 30 healthy people prepared to be hurt. Researchers punched out a 3-millimetre-deep circular biopsy from the volunteers’ inner cheeks. They repeated the process on the skin just below the armpit. Somehow, the scientists convinced the participants to come back to the laboratory for observation. The difference between the two injury sites was striking. The mouth cuts closed quickly — in a few days. But the inner arm wounds were still lingering two weeks later¹.

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Subjects

Regeneration
Medical research

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