Sometimes, when I give public presentations, people ask whether stem cells are good for the face. I always say that if stem cells could help improve people’s faces, I would look like this.

It’s a line that gets a laugh, but it’s also true. The ads you see touting stem cells as being beneficial for skin are all using plant stem cells. But new research has managed to turn back the clock on skin cells, and it might do more than just help skin look younger.

Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs)

Back in 2007, Japanese scientist Shinya Yamanaka discovered a way to turn ordinary skin cells back into an embryonic-like state, meaning those cells could then be turned into any other cell in the body. He called these cells induced pluripotent stem cells or iPSCs. Dr. Yamanaka was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for this work.

Using this work as a starting point, a team at Cambridge University in the UK developed a technique that can rewind the clock on skin cells but stop less than a third of the way through, making the cells younger without erasing their identity as skin cells.

The study, published in the journal eLife, showed that researchers could make older skin cells 30 years younger. This wasn’t about restoring a sense of youthful beauty to the skin; instead, it was about something far more important: restoring youthful function to the skin.

Skin cells

In a news release, lead author Dr. Diljeet Gill said: “Our understanding of aging at the molecular level has progressed over the last decade. These advances allow researchers to measure age‑related biological changes in human cells. We used this to assess how much rejuvenation our new method achieved.”

The team demonstrated their approach using fibroblasts, the most common cell type in connective tissues such as skin. Fibroblasts produce collagen, which supports tissue structure and helps heal wounds. In the rejuvenated cells, the researchers found increased collagen production and signs that the cells could improve wound healing compared to untreated, older cells.

They also observed changes in genes linked to age‑related conditions, including Alzheimer’s disease and cataracts.

The researchers acknowledge that this work is still early, but the fact that they could make cells behave like younger cells—without losing their identity as skin cells—holds tremendous promise for skin conditions and regenerative medicine more broadly.

Dr. Gill concluded: “Our results represent a big step forward in understanding cell reprogramming. We showed that cells can be rejuvenated without losing function, and rejuvenation aims to restore function to older cells. The reversal of aging indicators in disease‑associated genes is particularly promising for future work.”

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