Early Regenerative Medicine For Hair

From the Independent, a look at progress towards first generation stem cell based therapies for hair regrowth: "Hair is grown by the dermal papilla cells in skin. These can be removed and grown in a laboratory dish. Normally,these lab cells lose their ability to grow hairs, but add keratinocyte stem cells to the dermal papilla cells and the new cells are able to grow hairs when injected back into a bald head. Because no drugs are involved, and the human cells are unmodified, there are no side effects. New growth should become evident after three months. It should work on people too bald for a hair transplant and on women, whose hair thins out rather than being lost in a receding hairline. ... This month phase two trials - to discover the most effective dose - begin on 50 people ... Scientists at Intercytex are trying to create a cell bank to allow cells to be transferred from one individual to another."

Link: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article359620.ece