Hair he is: This picture shows tufts of hair grown from stem cells on the back of a bald mouse, which Japanese researchers have been testing to try and find a cure for baldness with coloured hairsIt may not be the most handsome of creatures.
But this mouse – or more specifically its bristly tuft of hair – could hold the remedy for baldness and going grey, scientists claim.
They have worked out how to use stem cells to create pigmented hair follicles that grew successfully when implanted into hairless mice.
In a two-in-one experiment, they have found a way of growing hair and of making it pigmented. Their success has been on mice but they hope to test the technique on men for the first time in as little as three years.
And within a decade, the treatment could be in widespread use.
British experts have commended the Japanese researchers, saying they seem to have cracked a problem that has baffled scientists for decades.
More than 7million British men are bald or balding, and while many are perfectly happy, those who aren't face limited options.
The breakthrough centres on stem cells, 'blank' cells with the ability to turn into other cell types, and follicles, the tiny pouches that sprout hairs.
Hair growth: This close up picture shows hairs grown from stem cells on the back of a bald mouseThe scientists, from the Tokyo University of Science, took two types of skin stem cell, which together contain all the instructions for a hair follicle and grew them in the lab, until they formed immature follicles.
These were then implanted in on the backs of hairless mice and, within two to three weeks, they sprouted hairs. The technique was also used to grow whiskers.
Excitingly, the mice also grew tufts of hair when human stem cells, gleaned from the scalp of a balding man were used, the journal Nature Communications reports.
source: dailymail
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