Source: Medical News Today
Article Date: 17 May 2007 - 0:00 PDT
Summary:
Medical News Today reports on a new study in which researchers used adult skin stem cells to grow new hair follicles:
"US scientists have found a way to make the skin of laboratory mice gives rise to new fully working hair follicles complete with new hair by using a protein that stimulates follicle generating genes in skin cells when skin is wounded." The scientists discovered that the cells of the epidermis take on the properties of stem cells and generate new hair follicles that are capable of growing new shafts of hair. So far the results have only been achieved in mice, but the hope is the same is true of human skin and that the discovery may one day lead to treatments for baldness and abnormal hair growth. The study is published in the journal Nature.
