Upon cutaneous injury, the human body naturally forms an electric field (EF) that acts as a guidance cue for relevant cellular and tissue repair and reorganization. However, the direct current...

This work delves into the impact of direct current (DC) stimulation on both healthy and diabetic in vitro wound healing models of keratinocytes, the most prevalent cell type of the skin. The augmentation of non-metal electrode materials and prudent microfluidic design allowed for a platform to study the effects of different sustained (12 hours DC) electric field configurations on wound closure dynamics. We found that electric guidance cues (≃ 200 mV/mm) enhance wound closure rate by nearly 3X for both healthy and diabetic-like keratinocyte sheets, compared to their respective controls. The motility-inhibited keratinocytes regained wound closure rates with stimulation (increase from 1.0 to 2.8 %/hr) comparable to healthy non-stimulated keratinocyte collectives (3.5 %/hr). Our results bring hope that electrical stimulation is a viable pathway to accelerate wound repair.