No more wigs and hairpieces. American researchers have developed a new method of combating baldness. They turn stem cells into hair cells.
Baldness, soon over? It is in any case the hope that brings an American team. They succeeded in reviving the hair growth of laboratory mice. For this, the researchers used human stem cells. Their protocol is described in the journal PLOS One.
To date, surgery is the only effective remedy for bald people. The “hair transplant” consists in taking hair from the base of the skull and re-implanting it on the bald area. But this technique is expensive, not always aesthetic… and its success is not guaranteed. A team from the Institute for Medical Research at Sandford-Burnham (Orlando, Florida, United States) has developed a new method: to induce induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) to differentiate into hair cells. These are very close to the dermal papillae, a cell population that regulates the formation of follicles and the hair growth cycle. These differentiated cells, however, are stronger. This is because dermal papillae are difficult to obtain and quickly lose their ability to induce the formation of hair follicles.
Implanted in mice without coat, the differentiated cells allowed hair regrowth. In the eyes of Alexey Terskikh, co-author of the study, “This technique constitutes a major improvement over current methods, which are based on the transplantation of existing hair follicles from one part of the skull to another, in particular because it offers an unlimited source of cells for the patient’s transplantation ”. Work on human subjects is planned, but the team is still seeking funding.
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