Could wounded skin someday regrow perfectly without scars? A new study by Harvard stem cell biologists published in Cell reveals a way to fully regenerate skin by unblocking an embryonic healing mechanism that shuts off after birth. Demonstrated on mice, the study suggests a potential means to develop similar therapies in human patients.

Biomedical engineers from Brown University have developed a new wound dressing material that releases antibiotic drugs only when harmful bacteria are present in a wound. In the new study, published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers show that the material could help rapidly clear wound infections to accelerate healing while reducing the unnecessary use of antibiotics—a major driver of antibiotic resistance and hard-to-treat “superbug” infections that claim tens of thousands of lives worldwide each year.

Scientists from Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and University College London (UCL) have created the first lab‑grown esophagus—the food pipe—shown to safely replace a full section of the organ and restore normal function, including swallowing, in a growing animal without the need for immunosuppression.

Researchers at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) have developed a novel virtual reality (VR) system that could make the treatment of arachnophobia, also known as spider phobia, more targeted and personalized in the future. The work is published in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.