Scientists inch closer to banishing baldness
A joint UK and US team has developed a technique to grow human hair from tissue samples in a laboratory.
LONDON, England, Friday November 1, 2013 – A joint British and American research team has developed a technique with the potential to transform the treatment of hair loss.
Scientists at Columbia University Medical Centre in the United States and Britain’s University of Durham were able to grow new human hair from tissue samples in a laboratory.
In a departure from traditional baldness therapies, which include drugs to slow the loss of hair and transplants that take hair from the back of the head to replenish bald spots, the team planned to take material from the base of a hair and use it to grow many new hairs.
Despite successes in animal studies, human hair proved tricky to grow, however. Whenever human tissue was taken from the dermal papillae – the cells that form the base of each hair follicle – the cells would grow into skin instead of producing new hairs.
The researchers nevertheless found that by clumping the cells together in “3D spheroids” they would retain their hairy characteristics.
Tissue was taken from seven people and grown in 3D spheroids. These were then transplanted into human skin which had been grafted on to the backs of mice.
New hair follicles formed in five out of the seven cases and some tiny new hairs began to form after six weeks.
The study results were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More research is needed and safety is a concern with any future therapy involving transplanting cells which have been grown in the laboratory.
Risks include the possibility of infection and the cells becoming abnormal or even cancerous while being grown.
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