Scientists discover baldness solution "breakthrough"

PanARMENIAN.Net - Scientists have discovered a "critical breakthrough" in the treatment for baldness after creating natural-looking hair from stem cells, Sky News reports.

US researchers said they have refined a method which allowed them to grow hair through the skin of mice using dermal papilla cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells.

The study involved the human stem cells being combined with mice cells before they were attached to a 3D biodegradable scaffold made from the same material as dissolvable stitches.

It helped control the direction of hair growth and aided the stem cells to integrate into the skin.

The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the International Society for Stem Cell Research in Los Angeles.

"Our new protocol... overcomes key technological challenges that kept our discovery from real-world use," said Alexey Terskik, of Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in California.

"Now we have a robust, highly controlled method for generating natural-looking hair that grows through the skin using an unlimited source of human iPSC-derived dermal papilla cells.