HealthCert Blog

Researchers have successfully grown hair follicles from progenitor cells, which are similar to stem cells, in a new treatment that could cure hair loss conditions like alopecia and baldness.

Researchers at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine transformed progenitor cells into skin cells that are able to sustain hair follicles. The follicles were placed onto mice which were then able to produce hair.

The study’s authors said that many ageing people do not grow hair well because adult cells gradually lose their regenerative ability, but that the new findings successfully regrew hair on mice and could inspire a strategy for stimulating hair growth in human patients.

In humans, a patient suffering from hair loss would give scientists their own progenitor cells and the hair follicles would be grown in a lab. Once fully grown, they could be transplanted directly onto the patient.

In a hair transplant, a small patch of scalp is removed from an area that has plenty of hair. It is then divided into single hairs which are grafted onto other areas of the scalp.

Pattern baldness affects about half of all men by the age of 50.

Read more recent research on alopecia.

Source:
Atherton, M. (October 24, 2017.) Baldness cure: Treatment for alopecia and baldness as ‘stem cells’ RE-GROW hair. Express.

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