Researchers successfully grow hair on bald mouse: Humans next?
Baku, April 21 (AZERTAC). Great news for bald men men and women: Scientists in Japan have successfully regrown hair on a bald mouse.
Even though the technological advancement only happened on a rodent, this new development may mean that humans could look forward to a hair-filled future.
Not only were Japanese scientists able to regrow hair in the study, which was published April 17 in Nature Communications, but they were able to manipulate the density and color of the locks.
"Our study provides a substantial contribution to the development of bioengineering technologies that will enable future regenerative therapy for hair loss caused by injury or by diseases such as alopecia and androgenic alopecia," researchers wrote in the study.
Researchers cultivated two different kinds of mice hair follicles and transplanted them on a mouse. Three weeks later, 74 percent of the hair follicles had grown into black hair. When human hair follicles cells were transplanted, human hair grew. The hair continued to regenerate after it fell out due to normal growth cycles.
Hair loss is a very common problem in both men and women. By 35, two-thirds of American men will experience some sort of noticeable hair loss, according to the American Hair Loss Association. At 50, 85 percent of men will have significantly thinning hair. Thought typically considered to be a male disease, 40 percent of women make up hair loss sufferers. The disease is not life-threatening, but it can cause many emotional problems because of the physical changes.
While researchers believe that this method won`t be able to cure premature baldness, it may give people a chance to relive their hairy youth and consider themselves locky.
According to the lead scientist Takashi Tsuji, the triumphant test can result in a potential cure for human hair loss.
“If there is still hair on the back of the head, then it`s possible to use the cells from that, bio-engineer it, and regenerate new hair,” Tsuji said. “We`re moving our research forward [with that in mind].”
Aside from the mice`s stem cells, Tsuji implanted cells extracted from the follicles of human, to grow fur on the hairless mouse. He bundled several stem cells to regulate the color and density of the hair, increasing the likelihood of a solution to graying strands.
Researchers in Tokyo are the latest scientists to deal with hair loss using mice. Last year, researchers at the University of California-Los Angeles discovered a chemical compound that obstructed the stress effects, because stress is regarded as a hair loss factor. Ninety days after treating hairless mice using the compound, the animals grew entire heads and backs of hair.
In 2005, a team at the Johns Hopkins University and Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore fixed a gene mutation to regrow the bald mice`s fur.
Not one of the studies has generated cures for human hair loss.
Tsuji said, it should take up to a decade before he can use the treatment to patients.
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