Breakthrough in Baldness Cure

**Kevy5150** · 05.16.07, 06:47 PM

Hair regrown in baldness breakthrough
By DEBORAH SMITH - SMH | Thursday, 17 May 2007
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In a discovery that could lead to a cure for baldness, it has been shown for the first time that hair can be regrown.

The research overturns a longstanding belief that loss of hair follicles in adulthood is permanent.

An American team of scientists found that, under the right conditions, skin has the ability to revert to a more primitive state and then regenerate normally, producing new hair.

The research was carried out in mice and involved researchers cutting away a piece of skin tissue.

"We've found that we can influence the skin to heal in a way that includes all the normal structures of the skin, such as hair follicles and oil glands," said the team leader, George Cotsarelis, a University of Pennsylvania dermatologist.

The new hair the mice produced was indistinguishable from their existing hair.

Professor Cotsarelis said the findings could have applications for a range of hair-loss conditions, not just male baldness.

The researchers also found they could suppress the growth of hair in the healing skin. This meant hairy people might also benefit in future, he said.

Cheng-Ming Chuong, of the University of Southern California pathology department, said the study, which was published in the journal Nature, could have even wider implications for medicine.

"[It is] an unexpected finding that could change our current understanding of repair and regeneration in adult mammals", said Professor Chuong, who was not a member of the team.

The team showed that the healing process triggered an embryonic state in the skin in which dormant genes were re-awakened. These genes instructed stem cells to move to the area of the injury and begin to make new hair follicles.

By increasing or reducing the levels of the proteins produced by these genes, known as wnt proteins, the team was able to increase or decrease the number of new hair follicles that grew.

A University of Melbourne researcher, Justine Ellis, said the role played by wnt proteins in hair follicle regeneration was one of the study's most important finds.

It might be possible to develop treatments for baldness, based on these proteins, which would not require the skin to be cut. But she said the hair would still be subject to the conditions that made it fall out in the first place.

If regeneration could be coupled to an effective treatment that prevents hair loss "then we might really be onto something"