May 3, 2022

By Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science staff

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When she was a child, Saranya Wyles, M.D., Ph.D., would recite the stages of wound healing in Latin — rubor, tumor, calor, dolor, functio laesa— to her father at the dinner table. Decades later, that ingrained knowledge would be a cornerstone of her regenerative medicine research, education, and practice at Mayo Clinic. Dr. Wyles is a dermatologist whose subspecialty is regenerative medicine.

"Dermatology has a natural connection to regenerative medicine because the skin is the largest organ that regenerates in the body. There is so much we can learn about regenerative medicine through the skin," says Dr. Wyles. "The unmet needs of patients also drew me to dermatology. I see a lot of age-associated skin conditions and complex inflammatory skin diseases that need treatment beyond the current available treatment armamentarium. I think the new line of cellular (stem cell-based) and acellular (exosome-based) therapies in regenerative medicine have a lot of potential for skin disorders."

Regenerative medicine is an emerging field that seeks to repair, replace, or restore diseased cells, tissue, or organs. Mayo Clinic's Center for Regenerative Medicine is leading efforts to integrate new regenerative biotherapeutics into clinical care. It supports Dr. Wyles' research as part of its objective of bringing new cures to the practice.

Zombie cells and skin degeneration

A focus of Dr. Wyles' research is the role of zombie cells in skin aging and diseases. Also known as senescent cells, zombie cells secrete harmful proteins and chemicals that become sort of a "toxic soil" locally, if not globally, that disrupts the function of stem cells. When cells become senescent, they no longer divide and differentiate, and they lose their ability to repair diseased tissue — in this case, skin.

"The goal of my laboratory is to understand skin cellular senescence and its role in skin disorders, particularly wound healing and skin fibrosis (scarring)," says Dr. Wyles. "I'm using topical senolytics or topical clearance of senescent cells in preclinical models to investigate whether that can improve wound healing."

Dr. Wyles' dermatology practice addresses rare and complex skin conditions, and her research is aimed at providing new solutions for patients. For example, she is interested in improving treatment for hair loss accompanied by scarring — also known as scarring alopecia.

"Scarring around the hair follicle is poorly understood, and when it happens, it has no regenerative potential. In some cases, senescent cells accumulate around the hair follicle," says Dr. Wyles. "My interest in these types of scarring hair loss is to understand what is driving the thickening and scarring of the tissue and whether new answers lie within regenerative therapies."

Therapeutics to repair aging skin are highly sought after in the cosmetic industry. Dr. Wyles' research seeks to avoid the hype and provide a scientifically validated approach to conditions such as wrinkles, age spots, and thinning skin that occur as people grow older. Her studies examine the role of cellular senescence as a biomarker of skin aging.