1 March 2004

Surprise discovery of self healing skin disorders

Experts on skin disorders at the University of Dundee have discovered by chance a natural way for skin to heal itself in conditions such as Epidermolysis Bullosa Simplex (EBS) * a currently incurable blistering disease.

Professor Irwin McLean who has uncovered a series of findings on skin disorders recently, has come across a second mutation in a patient that results in defective genes repairing themselves in EBS, for which at the moment, there is no effective treatment.

Irwin, from the University of Dundee Medical School explains: "To test our therapy systems we took skin cells from a patient with EBS to grow in culture. To our surprise, we found that a high percentage of the patient's cells had corrected themselves. The corrected cells had a second mutation in the same gene that counteracted the effects of the first disease-causing mutation.

If nature can do gene therapy, it is very likely that we can do it too. It also suggests that if the defect can be corrected in even a small percentage of cells, this might be enough to stop of slow down skin blistering and benefit the patients."

Some EBS patients show a noticeable improvement in their skin blistering as they get older. We speculate that this improvement may be due to an accumulation of skin cells with this type of reverse mutation in many patients.

EB affects about 5000 people in the UK.

By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk