A mutation in a gene commonly associated with deafness can play an important part in improving wound healing, a scientist told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, today (Monday 8 May 2006). Dr. Stella Man, from the Institute of Cell and Molecular Sciences, Queen Mary's University, London, UK, said that the discovery may have implications for the treatment of a wide range of wounds, including post-surgery. ... Professor Kelsell was the first to describe the link between Cx26 mutations and deafness in 1997. "Since many people carry this mutation", Dr. Man said, "and people who have just one such mutation are not deaf, we felt that there might be some evolutionary advantage to it, so we decided to investigate how the mutation affected the ability of cells to communicate with each other in the epidermis where Cx26 is also expressed."
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