1. When Wound-Healing Meets the Looking-Glass

Every now and then science gifts us a happy accident—the sort that spins a niche lab project into front-page potential. For Professor Sheila MacNeil’s tissue-engineering group in Sheffield, that moment arrived during a routine screen of wound dressings. The team had infused an alginate gel with 2-deoxy-D-ribose (2dDR)—a humble DNA sugar already known to coax new blood vessels in diabetic wounds. Three weeks later, not only had the mice healed; they were sporting glossy new fur across the treatment site. A follow-up androgenic-alopecia model confirmed the hunch: daily 2dDR outperformed placebo and matched 5 % Minoxidil for regrowth, with a striking 89 % hair-cover versus 45 % in controls.

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