When skin is punctured, the damage often destroys the weave-like structure of collagen that gives skin its strength. But when the body tries to patch up the wound, an evolutionary legacy means it acts in haste: in ancient times, if people's wounds did not heal quickly, they were likely to die.

So instead of rebuilding the complex collagen weave as before, the body creates a quick fix by producing thin, aligned strips of collagen. When skin cells grow on this, they produce the pale, less flexible material we know as scar tissue, rather than normal skin. Now Electrosols, a biotechnology company based in Haslemere, Surrey, England has developed a spray it believes could help wounds heal without scarring.

The spray produces a fine web of biodegradable polymer fibers that collagen-making cells called fibroblasts can grow on. As more and more fibroblasts grow on the polymer webbing, they produce a regular collagen structure, much like that in normal skin. Electrosols researchers believe that controlling the formation of collagen in this way will lead to normal skin growth instead of scarring.

To make the spray, the company mixes ethanol and a biodegradable polymer -- such as polylactic acid -- in a small semiconducting container, and then gives it an electric charge by putting an electric field across the container. Because the wound is at a far lower electrical potential than the polymer, the solution is attracted to the skin surface and flies out through tiny nozzles, producing fine, light fibers, each of them 5 micrometers in diameter.

The fibers have the same charge so they repel each other, making them regularly spaced. This initial polymer fiber mat wouldn't necessarily have any bearing on the final scar. Collagen is organized and reorganized continuously, and a whole range of things governs that.

New Scientist, 8 January 2000