Immortal Skin

摘要

Lynn allen-hoffmann loves skin. When she talks about it, her voice softens until her Wisconsin accent is almost unde-tectable, and she whispers words like "elegant," "brilliant," and "masterpiece." As a professor of pathology at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, Allen-Hoffmann has spent more than a decade studying the basic biology of skin cells: how they divide and how they become what she calls "our protective armor." Normally, her harvested skin cells—like most other lab-grown cells— survive about 15 weeks. When they die, she throws them out and starts again.