A recent scientific discovery could in the future be used to slow down the signs of aging.
A team of researchers has discovered how the human body creates skin from stem cells and even reproduces small amounts of skin in the laboratory.
The research is part of a study in which scientists need to gain an understanding of how each part of the human body is made, one cell at a time.
In addition to delaying aging, the research findings could also be used to make artificial skin for grafting and preventing scarring.
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The Human Cell Atlas Project is one of the most ambitious research programs in biology.
It is an international project, but it is based at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge.
Muzlifah Hanifa, a professor and one of the leaders of the project, says that it will help scientists to treat diseases more effectively, but also to find new ways to stay healthier longer and maybe even look younger.
"If we can manipulate the skin and prevent aging, we will have fewer wrinkles," says Professor Hanifa.
"If we can understand how cells change from their initial development to aging in adulthood, then we can try and say, 'How do we rejuvenate the organs, make the heart younger, how do we make the skin younger?'"
Such ideas are still far from being realized, but researchers are making progress, and recently a breakthrough has been made in understanding how skin cells develop in the fetus during the early stages of human development.
When an egg is fertilized, all human cells are the same.
But after three weeks, specific genes within these so-called "stem cells" are activated and tell them how to specialize and join together to form different parts of the body.
Researchers have identified which genes are activated at which moment and in which places for the formation of the largest human organ, the skin.
Under the microscope and treated with chemicals, they look like tiny colored rays of light.
The genes that turn orange form the surface of the skin.
Others, yellow colors determine skin color, and there are many others that form other structures that create hair, allow us to sweat, and protect us from the outside world.
The researchers essentially obtained a set of instructions for creating human skin and published them in a scientific journal The nature (Nature).
Understanding these guidelines opens the way to exciting possibilities.
Scientists already know, for example, that fetal skin can heal without scarring.
The new guidance package details how this happens, and it could also be investigated whether it could be applied to adult skin, perhaps for surgical procedures.
Also, scientists discovered that cells of the immune system play a key role in the formation of blood vessels in the skin, and were then able to mimic the appropriate genetic instructions in the laboratory.
They used chemicals to turn genes on and off at the right time and in the right places to artificially grow skin from stem cells.
So far, they have managed to grow scraps of skin from which hairs grow.
Professor Hanifa says that the ultimate goal is to perfect the technique.
"If you know how to make human skin, then it can be used for patients who have burns and it can be a way to transplant tissue.
"Another example is that if it's possible to make hair follicles, then we can actually make bald people grow hair," she says.
Lab-grown skin can also help scientists understand how inherited skin diseases develop and test possible new treatments.
Instructions to turn genes on and off are sent throughout the embryo during development and continue to be sent after birth into human adulthood so that all of our various organs and tissues can develop.
During the eight years of the Atlas of Human Cells project, 100 million cells from different parts of the body were analyzed.
An atlas of the brain and lungs has been drafted, and researchers are working on an atlas of human kidney, liver and heart cells.
The next stage is the creation of individual atlases, says Sarah Tajhman, a professor from the University of Cambridge, who is one of the founders and the leader of the international team of scientists working on the Atlas of Human Cells project.
"It's incredibly exciting because it gives us new insight into physiology, anatomy and provides a new understanding of people.
"This is going to change textbooks about us and our tissues and organs, and how they work," she told BBC News.
The genetic instructions for how other parts of the body grow will be released in the coming weeks and months, until eventually we have a more complete picture of how the human body is formed.
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