Goodbye Baldness; Stem Cells To Grow New Hair- An Eye-opener For Cell-based Therapy In Hair Loss

A new era has dawned in cell-based therapy for people with pattern baldness and hair loss problems with Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute generating new hair growth with the help of human pluripotent stem cells. Until recently, the main treatment for hair loss was transplantation of available hair follicles from one part of the scalp to another.

Transplantation is a surgical procedure done by harvesting or extracting hair follicles from the scalp and grafting it in the bald areas. Rejection of graft and limited supply of grafting tissues were the two main constraints of transplantation by far.

Dr Alexey Terskikh, associate professor in the Development, Aging, and Regeneration Program at Sanford-Burnham, said that the generation of new hair from human pluripotent stem cells would be a welcoming alternative for transplantation done with the limited number of available hair follicles. As their newly found stem cell method would supply unlimited number of cells for transplantation and the hair-follicle source constraint can no longer affect the procedure.

He also added that their researcher team manipulated the human pluripotent stem cells to become dermal papilla cells. Dermal papilla cells are those that regulate hair follicle formation and hair growth cycle. These cells could not be used for transplanting as such because it is not possible to obtain them in required amounts and are incapable of inducing hair follicles in vitro in cultures, he clarified.

In adults, the dermal papilla cells cannot be multiplied in laboratory conditions and are soon found to lose their hair-inducing property, said Terskikh. He also mentioned that the human pluripotent stem cells coaxed into dermal papilla cells could generate hair in mice, and their next research project would be using human pluripotent stem cells that are manipulated into dermal papilla cells in human subjects

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