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Baldness cure secret revealed by mice

A tuft of hair grown on the back of a bald lab mouse may hold the key to curing baldness in humans.



A research team in Japan used stem cell cultivation to create hair follicles from scratch. These follicles were then implanted into the hairless mice where they grew hairs.


[Related story: Famous bald men who've gone for hair plugs]


The stem cells were taken from a balding man and the next step is to implant the created follicles into a human head in order to win the battle against balding, experienced by more than seven million men in the UK.

The technique may also allow men to re-grow hair in their original colour, even if they’ve already started to go grey.

The researchers from Tokyo University believe a cure for baldness could be engineered within three years. It will be an expensive treatment, however, and they believe it could be more useful in reconstructive situations where traditional hair transplant operations aren’t possible.

And there’s more research to be done, as the team do not yet know if it would be possible to recreate an entire head of hair. In this study, the hairs had to be implanted one at a time, which is fine on a mouse but a rather different proposition on an entire bald head!