New optical method reveals early collagen damage invisible in skin scans

Article excerpt

An international team led by researchers at Hiroshima University has developed a new way to detect subtle, early-stage changes in human skin collagen before any visible signs of damage appear. The study, published in ACS Nano, reveals that the molecular organization and supramolecular chirality, or structural handedness, of dermal collagen collapse before the visible fiber network actually thins or fragments.