Stem cells could cure baldness as per researchers

A new scientific discovery may offer a cure for baldness, as per researchers at the University of California, Riverside who’s stated a single chemical is a key cause of hair follicle cells dividing and dying.

The hope is that this could be reversed in order to treat baldness and also heal wounds.

As said by UC Riverside mathematical biologist and study co-author Qixuan Wang: “In science fiction when characters heal quickly from injuries, the idea is that stem cells allowed it.

“In real life, our new research gets us closer to understanding stem cell behaviour, so that we can control it and promote wound healing.”

The study, detailed in a recent Biophysical Journal article, outlines how the team decided to focus on hair follicles as they’re the only organ in humans that regenerates automatically and regularly, even if they haven’t been injured.

What they discovered is that a type of protein named TGF-beta controls how cells in the follicles including stem cells divide and form new ones or die off.

Wang added, “TGF-beta has two opposite roles. It helps activate some hair follicle cells to produce new life, and later, it helps orchestrate apoptosis, the process of cell death.”

As is often the case with chemicals in the body, the outcome is determined by how much TGF-beta is produced.

While no one is entirely sure why follicles die, some theories suggest that it could be related to animals that shed fur in hotter weather or to camouflage.

But Wang went on to explain that even when a hair follicle destroys itself, it never kills its stem cell reservoir.

“When the surviving stem cells receive the signal to regenerate, they divide, make new cells and develop into a new follicle,” she said.

Source: Agencies Baldness cure stem cell research Baldness cure stem cell research