[scryer]

Lycanthropy in the biological sense would function in two know ways

First would be like a virus where in example of the moon change, it lies dormant in the bloodstream until the moons effect on the it activates it, it then invades the human cells and creates new copies of itself till the cell is used up and dies and spreads . This seems more in line with the skin rip tfs seen as the new form is growing from within until the human cells are all used up or no longer needed.

Second is the condition acts like a cancer, when its triggered it causes the cells to replicate in a mutated form from its own seperate DNA that carries alternative sex traits, this would be a closer idea to what we see in books and movies, essentially the wolfish traits like a muzzle/ears/tails are a sorta tumorlike growth of the mutated cells. It would be possible in this idea that there are still original human cells left and when the change ends they regenerate themselves, just a reverse werehuman change.