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Hairless Seniors May
Find Hope in Stem Cell Research
You may
even be able to pick the color you want
March 15, 2004 - Once again there is a
promise of new hair for the bald and this technique using stem cells has
clearly been proven to work for mice. A new report published yesterday
says an effective treatment for baldness may be only five years away. An
earlier reports suggests you can even choose the color of your new hair.
When these stem cells are transplanted
into skin they spontaneously grow into hair follicles that produce hair.
This latest report on the research using mice was reported in the online
version of the journal Nature Biotechnology. The researchers say it
takes us one step closer to finding cures for hair loss in people.
"I think this, or something like it,
will be available in the next five to 10 years," said team leader George
Cotsarelis, a dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania. (Click
here for more about Dr. Cotsarelis)
Two years ago, similar research was
creating green hair in mice – indicating these new stem cell techniques
could not only produce new hair but also give new color to hair. When
the cells are transplanted into skin they spontaneously grow into hair
follicles that produce hair.
"The hair follicle is a great factory,"
explains Robert Hoffman, president of the San Diego-based AntiCancer,
Inc. "It can be coded to produce more hair or colored hair. It could
also be a good factory for more useful products like insulin."
The 2002 study was reported in the
journal, Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, in September of 2002. Hoffman's group
removed skin grafts from dead mice and introduced the glowing green
gene, GFP, by injecting the skin with a virus containing the gene. The
team also applied an enzyme called collagenase to the mouse skin, which
made the hair follicles more receptive to the glowing green gene.
They then grafted the skin onto other
mice and found these skin patches persistently sprouted hair that glowed
green under blue light.
The stem cells are found in existing
hair follicles. "We could isolate the cells from hairs remaining on the
back of your scalp, grow them in culture and then reconstitute new hair
follicles," Professor Cotsarelis said.
Although stem cells potentially capable
of turning into numerous types of tissue have been isolated from human
skin, those believed to form hair follicles have proved more elusive. No
one has yet extracted hair follicle stem cells from the human scalp - a
vital stage if treatments using them are to follow.
"We've confirmed that similar genetic
markers in the mouse are in the same place in the human, so that's the
first step," Professor Cotsarelis said.
His team used cell labelling techniques
to isolate the mice cells and prove they can develop into all the mature
cell types of the hair follicle. It then mixed the stem cells with
others taken from the surrounding skin and transplanted them into other
mice, triggering new follicle and hair growth.
Researchers at AntiCancer, Inc. first
began tackling baldness 14 years ago for chemotherapy patients who lose
hair following treatments. Since then researchers at the San Diego
clinic, the University of Pennsylvania and other labs have been making
gradual steps toward finding a treatment for the condition by
manipulating genes in hair follicles, mostly in mice.
Not only could these hair follicles be
genetically modified to sprout more robust hair, the hope is they might
also be modified to carry genes that would deliver a steady dose of
therapeutic cures for people with diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer and
other diseases. In this way, a patient's treatment could literally be
delivered through their own hair follicles.
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