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| home : pages : what's new in medicine vol. 6 : stem cells - a hope for baldness : | |||||
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STEM CELLS: A HOPE FOR BALDNESSScientists have shown that stem cells injected into bald spots not only grow new hair but actually create hair follicles - at least in mice."You're actually born with the number of hair follicles that you're going to have for the rest of your life, so it's pretty significant that we were able to find cells in an adult that have the ability to make hair follicles," said Dr. George Cotsarelis, one of the lead investigators. The findings could revolutionize hair-loss treatments in humans and also have far-reaching applications in everything from better skin grafts for burn victim to cancer research. However, more studies are needed. Still, this is what is known: Cotsarelis, a dermatologist at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center in Philadelphia, and his colleagues used genetic tools to prove that stem cells harvested from adult mice could turn into all types of skin cells. It was published in the April issue of Nature Biotechnology. Current drugs on the market, such as Rogaine, only stimulate existing hair follicles to either slow or reverse hair loss. They do not create new follicles. "We will see something along those lines [creating follicles] over the next five or 10 years," Cotsarelis said. --> return to menu / back ... (click) --> return to top of the page (click) |
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