In a potential breakthrough to combat hair loss, scientists have grown hair follicles in petri dishes using embryonic skin cells from mice. A team from Yokohama National University in Japan did this by controlling the spatial arrangement of two types of cells, epithelial and mesenchymal. Epithelial cells are a type of cell that line the inside and outside of the body’s surfaces. They are found in your skin, blood vessels, and organs.
Mesenchymal cells are multipotent stem cells found in the bone marrow and important for the construction and repair of skeletal tissues. The development of hair follicles is coordinated by the interactions between these cells or EMIs.
The organic culture system developed by the research team produced hair follicles and hair shafts with almost 100 percent efficiency.
NOT TESTED ON HUMAN
While the procedure has not been tested using human cells, the team’s findings suggest they hope follicles can be implanted in one’s head and regenerated there.
His future research may eventually open new avenues for the development of new treatment strategies for hair loss disorders such as alopecia, a common autoimmune skin disease that causes hair loss.