Hair-forming stem cells have been tested in rat skin

In adult mice, their skin contains cells

Ms. Elaine Fuchs (Photos: searlescholars)

Stem cells are capable of producing skin and hair. Although this result has been anticipated, the latest recent publication is considered to be the first to explicitly demonstrate that skin cells are indeed fully capable of germplasm. new tissue.This new finding is expected to pave the way to treating baldness and burns.

Elaine Fuchs and colleagues at Rockefeller University, New York, isolated the cells from hair follicles on rat skin, then proved they were stem cells by searching for specific proteins and genes only. present on the stem cell line.

Researchers took individual cells and cultured them to create hundreds of thousands of copies, then transplanted them on a hair loss wound on the mouse's back.

The cells grow to form patches on the fur, it contains skin, follicles, hair and glands.

Fuchs said: The hair appears quite dense. They just look like a normal coat. She also said that this is the work that showed for the first time that individual cells separated from hair follicles can make copies of themselves, and produce countless copies of tissue, when they are transplanted - made up of real stem cells. The results of the study were published on Cell.

Elaine Fuchs's hair-based stem cell research project
(Photo: biotech)

Success is not complete

George Cotsarelis's stem cell research (Photo: eurekalert) George Cotsarelis from the Pennsylvania Medical University, who separated similar stem cells, said: "The next important step in this area is to as will proceed to the use of human tissue " .

"If humans are like mice, researchers can use the same method to separate stem cells," Fuchs said. Cells can be cultured and re-implanted in bald scalp or wound areas. It is hoped that they will then form the skin or hair of the hair.

This is also a much better bald treatment than current methods. The implant method involves moving patches of hair or any excess hair that covers the bald spot, often resulting in imperfect results.

Drugs, such as Propecia, that affect male hormone levels, can slow hair loss in some men. But the use of drugs needs to be done continuously, did not allow some people to use them.

Similar transplant methods can be used for treatment in burn patients. Currently, patients are implanted with an outer layer of skin, which does not contain hair follicles or sweat glands. Transplanted skin stem cells may be able to produce all forms of missing cells, Fuchs said.