No Electricity, No Life

Colin D. McCaig is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and was Regius Professor of Physiology, University of Aberdeen, for 20 years until retiring in 2022. His first paper, J.Physiol 314, 121-135 (1981), was seminal in reopening the issue of electrical guidance of nerve growth and wound healing. His lab and colleagues established that electrical signals control wound healing, nerve guidance and epithelial cell guidance in vivo and regulate proliferation and guidance of neurons, vascular endothelial cells, tumour cells and lens epithelial cells. Collectively these have major clinical relevance in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Several electrical devices to treat skin wounds are based on his wound healing studies.