Using Electricity to Heal

ganjadude writes to tell us that while the idea of using electricity to heal wounds was first reported 150 years ago by Emil Du Bois-Reymond, modern scientists may have found a way to practically apply this idea. From the article: "The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as corneas, in the lab. After 'wounding' these tissues, they applied varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and strength of the field."

Awesome

[BilZ0r]

That's actually quite an awesome paper. It seems that when a wound is made, it makes a low resistance shunt across skin, which normally has a voltage difference across it. This stimulates wound healing activity. The current peaks at 10 microA cm-2 and persisted at 4-8 microA cm-2, with all the current vector pointing towards the wound center. This paper shows not only that that effect is easily demonstrated in vitro, but what are the molecular mediators of it, see the original article here [nature.com].

Already out there

[bobllama]

There's already a company that's commercializing this - http://www.biofisica.com/ [biofisica.com]. They have some pretty interesting information on their site for anyone interested in more detail. I'm not associated with them in anyway, just happened to see them present at an event once.

Re:Sick of 'science' reporting

[staeiou]

Why do these articles never EVER tell anything meaningful - like for example the strenght and orientation of the field they used with some simple data tables and statistics? Who has access to some weird specialist journal with a 1000USD subscrition to get the raw data?

So you think Nature (the journal TFA said it was published in) is some weird specialist journal with a 1000USD subscription? It is probably the most well known academic journal in existence, at least to the non-academic. And even if you are too poor to buy a subscription, I'm almost positive that every public library subscribes to Nature.

Re:Implementation or Understanding

[IanDanforth]

Are we really understanding why these mice are being cured or are we just satisfied to have a technique that appears to work?

The key thing about this article is the depth to which they understand how the effect works. Not only is a specific mechanical effect explored (i.e. how much current, in what way) but how that mechanism effects the biology right down to the level of gene expression! This kind of top-to-bottom understanding is highly unusual. In direct opposition to your example when you have detailed understanding of how things work you can apply that knowledge carefully and specifically rather than just a slap-dash "this will cure everything" approach.

-Ian

Re:I don't think this is new

[budgenator]

Bone (Calcanous) has two differnt types of cells, osteoclasts which "eat bone" and osteoblasts which lay down new bone. The osteoclasts tend to meander, eating the one randomly, but the osteoblasts tend to follow electrical currents in the bone. The calcium salts in the bone give off electrical currents by the piezoelectric effect which causes the bone to grow in the direction that makes it the strongest for the stresses it normaly recieves.

Research abstract from Nature

[FleaPlus]

For the curious, here's the research abstract [nature.com] from the publication in Nature:

Electrical signals control wound healing through phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase-big gamma and PTEN

Wound healing is essential for maintaining the integrity of multicellular organisms. In every species studied, disruption of an epithelial layer instantaneously generates endogenous electric fields, which have been proposed to be important in wound healing. The identity of signalling pathways that guide both cell migration to electric cues and electric-field-induced wound healing have not been elucidated at a genetic level. Here we show that electric fields, of a strength equal to those detected endogenously, direct cell migration during wound healing as a prime directional cue. Manipulation of endogenous wound electric fields affects wound healing in vivo. Electric stimulation triggers activation of Src and inositol-phospholipid signalling, which polarizes in the direction of cell migration. Notably, genetic disruption of phosphatidylinositol-3-OH kinase-gamma (PI(3)Kgamma) decreases electric-field-induced signalling and abolishes directed movements of healing epithelium in response to electric signals. Deletion of the tumour suppressor phosphatase and tensin homolog (PTEN) enhances signalling and electrotactic responses. These data identify genes essential for electrical-signal-induced wound healing and show that PI(3)Kgamma and PTEN control electrotaxis.

The pioneer is Robert Becker MD

[Invisible Now]

He wrote "The Body Electric" decades ago. (still in print on Amazon, etc.) He did grounbreaking research at a Veterans Hospital demonstrating that very weak currents had profound practical effects on real patients. This book is fascinating... Everything from why our arms and legs develop to the same lengths (Ever wonder how?) to knitting bones that won't fuse and cancer. And the guy's not a crackpot... Real MD. Must read!

Re:Magnets

[ultranova]

The Mitochondria of the Cells (Energy Power house of the cells) are small DC motors and their efficiency goes up if their magnets are stronger.

You had me going up to this point. How about the rest of you ?

And shame on the people who moderated this "Interesting", apparently not even noticing anything odd with this passage:

. Since 1799 it has been known that transmutation (fusion for you physics types) is done in living things. Chickens in Wales were found putting out more Calcium than they were eating. This has since been validated extensively including 2 Nobel Prizes and work done by the US Army and by the French nuclear agency. The mitochondria of the cells does this transmutation. This means that they are small particle accelerators with microscopic "Wiggler" magnet sets.

You really didn't notice anything strange with this ?