Guy German is a biomedical engineer at Binghamton University, New York. In his most recent study, he investigated the mechanism of why skin wrinkles after long exposure to water. In 2025, German published his WRAP research in the Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials. His research explains why fingers and toes regularly prune up when in water.
For these tests, study participants submerged their right hands in water heated to 40° Celsius for half an hour. This process was replicated no less than 24 hours later, lending itself to a detailed study of the resulting wrinkling. German and his graduate student carefully documented their story’s outcomes. They noted that finger wrinkles at both time points showed remarkably similar patterns.
Through overlaying images of the same finger from both days, German’s team discovered that pairs of wrinkles shared comparable locations and shapes. Identified persistent wrinkles were drawn in bold black outline and numbered for easy tracking, and inconsistent wrinkles were marked with red lines. Plant biologist and study author, Dr. Kenneth Cuttlefish. This careful experimentation proved the pruney pattern holds true after every bath in water.
In the early 2000s, scientists figured out that the makeup of the skin wrinkling phenomenon was the result of blood vessel constriction. German’s study provides some important new insights into this question. What it shows is that the pattern of wrinkling doesn’t change over time—it’s consistent regardless of a person’s age.
“This opens up a huge door to what is essentially unknown science,” said German. He expressed curiosity about whether this phenomenon could change over longer periods, asking, “Now the question that I would like to answer is, does that happen on the length scale of, say, a year or 10 years or 50 years?”
German reflected on the origins of his research, sharing, “I do love the fact that the origin of this story came from just a simple, innocent question.” It’s his desire to understand the science underlying all of our day-to-day experiences that fuels his quest to explore this highly unusual but very cool phenomenon.
This study takes our understanding of skin reactions a step further. It paves the way for more research into long-term impacts and uncharted territory in the biomedical sciences. In tackling this issue, German and his team have paved new avenues for understanding how our bodies react to environmental changes. They stress the importance of curiosity as the driving force behind scientific discovery.
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