For future generations, toupees and brush-overs may become a thing of the past.
Dermatologists from Penn's School of Medicine announced last week that they were able to regenerate hair follicles in laboratory mice - leaving open the possibility that further research could one day remedy male-pattern baldness.
The research debunks current sentiment in the field of dermatology that suggests adults cannot develop new hair follicles.
Dermatology professor George Cotsarelis led the study and has been researching hair follicle stem cells for several years. During the initial stages of his team's research, it was discovered that stem cells are located in an area of the hair follicle called the bulge, which is found in both mouse and human skin.
Mayumi Ito, a post-doctoral fellow who was the lead author on the study, later observed that creating wounds caused hair to grow toward the center of the resulting scar. After meticulous observation of the wound-healing process, it was found that regeneration of hair follicles was stimulated by a genetic process that normally occurs during embryonic development.
Combining their efforts with the findings of Dermatology professor Sarah Millar, the research team found that this process could be amplified by using mice that produced higher levels of a specific protein called WNT. Consequently, the mice with elevated levels of WNT protein grew significantly greater amounts of hair than normal mice during the wound-healing process.
However, this study is not the first to recognize the possibility of hair follicle regeneration. A 1959 publication by Albert Kligman, inventor of Retin-A and professor emeritus at Penn Dermatology, had also cited to this phenomenon.
"Unfortunately, during its time of publication, Dr. Kligman's study and others like it had been ignored," says Cotsarelis.
And with the past difficulty of obtaining recognition from the scientific community, researchers are optimistic yet remaining pragmatic.
Cotsarelis noted that his team still has questions to be answered and hopes next to be able to better understand the molecular signals that cause cells to revert back to embryonic stages.
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