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Biotech News

Gene Research Gives Hope of Reversing Baldness 216

Posted by samzenpus from the rapunzel-rapunzel-regrow-your-hair dept.
Hair loss in humans might not be irreversible, suggest scientists who have helped create new hair cells on the skin of mice. It was thought hair follicles, once damaged, could never be replaced. A University of Pennsylvania team, writing in the journal Nature, say hair growth can actually be encouraged using a single gene.
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Gene Research Gives Hope of Reversing Baldness More

Gene Research Gives Hope of Reversing Baldness

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  • heh (Score:4, Funny)

    by stoolpigeon ( 454276 ) * <bittercode@gmail> on Wednesday May 16, 2007 @04:50PM (#19152101) Homepage Journal
    i'm not nearly as distressed by the hair i'm losing as much as by the hair that seems to grow more and more rapidly where i don't want it.
    • Great, I can get my hair back, and all i need to do is get scalped first?
      SWEET!
      where do i sign up?
    • Getting rid of excess hair is easy and relatively cheap. A girlfriend and I had planned on getting it done - her for her legs and me for my back. Adding hair back to the crown of my head (getting close to the point I'm going to have the chop off the several feet of hair I have to avoid having the "loser living in his mom's basement" skull-crown look) is significantly more painful and costly. The only real treatments long-term now involve grafts or artificial implants.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        There's nothing wrong [mulletjunky.com] with a skullet [urbandictionary.com]
      • "The only real treatments long-term now involve grafts or artificial implants."

        Any idea how much this costs? I can't find reliable info on pricing....I'm needing this too, just back from vacation, and saw the back of my head for the first time in awhile...YIKES....didn't know I was balding that badly!!

        • Any idea how much this costs?

          It's several multiples of a thousand dollars. The exact price depends on where you go. The average when I researched it seemed to be about US$4000. However, IMO the results are pretty poor - most of the "after" pictures I saw looked like the guy still had noticeably thinning hair instead of a completely bald spot. For an actor or model, I guess it would make sense to get something like that done that can be fudged by the makeup department to look passable on film, but it didn't

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )
      I can't help to agree. Too much hair is an inconvenience and may be the cause of sanitary problems.

      Too little hair may look funny on some people, but today people doesn't really react much if you show up completely bald (but with clothes on :-) ) at work one day. Some may be surprised if your have had a hair at shoulder length or more before, or if you go from bald to shoulder-length in a day. I think that we have seen about all possible hairstyles during the years since the 70's so there is nothing new t

      • "Monks"? I missed that one. You mean they actually had the tonsure thing with the shaved crown of the head? That's a great look.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JerkBoB ( 7130 )

        Especially irritating are the tickling nosehairs... Current cure is a tweezer...

        Dude... OW!

        Not to mention the infection possibilities. An infected nosehair follicle is misery.

        Try this:
        Nose/Ear Hair Trimmer [zwilling.com]

        I guess $25 may seem steep to some (I got mine via an Amazon reseller), but it works, and it will last a lifetime.

    • Re:heh (Score:5, Funny)

      by Frogbert ( 589961 ) <frogbertNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday May 17, 2007 @04:39AM (#19158367)
      You're telling me. I found my first grey pube today!

      It was in a Kebab but it was still a bit of a shock.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rts008 ( 812749 )
      No kidding!!

      As the only male in my family in 3 generatins that has hair past 30, I'm just waiting for the TurtleWax Buff-it Years!

      Early 20's get a vasectomy...grow Jack Elam Eyebrows (they need trimmed more than any other hair)
      Early 30's start braiding my nose hairs.
      Early 40's start trimming the hairs sprouting out of my ear canals! WTF? What did you say?
      Early 50's....Damn, I'm only 49...I'm afraid of my 50's!!!!Shit!..Nevermind, it got caught in my asshairs-guess I'll have to braid them too. Where's that

  • Only the beginning.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by IncandescentFlame ( 773807 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @02:33AM (#19157709)
    Advanced hair ... yeah, yeah. Exciting for some.... However, the next generation of this process could feasibly be new limbs or new organs ... sign me up.
  • reverses baldness, so what is the big deal?

    • Re:Rogaine (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17, 2007 @03:07AM (#19157899)
      Actually, it doesn't.

      If you're lucky, Rogaine (minoxidil) will help you keep the hair you have, and maybe grow a little hair back (not to mention, grow hair -on- your back, because the drug is absorbed systemically).

      It also tends to work only on your bald spot. Receding hairlines do not suddenly un-recede (proceed?).

      Also, what grows back tends to be a thin and sickly kind of hair. That is because, at the cellular level, baldness is actually an inflammatory condition, and while Rogaine addresses the symptoms of arrested hair growth, it does nothing to cure the underlying disease process, for which no effective treatment exists currently.

      In a nutshell, Rogaine tricks dying hair follicles into sputtering out a little more mane, but they're still dying at the root.

      And (the best part), if it works at all, it's good only as long as you use it religiously. Lapse, and what hair you were maintaining with the drug, promptly falls out within a few months.

      The follicle inflammatory response in baldness seems to be triggered by genetic sensitivity to a metabolite of male hormones (androgens). The other drug you've probably heard about, Propecia, attempts to block these sensitive androgen receptors, whose activation by the metabolite precipitates the inflammation. But it too is imperfect and rife with the potential for sexual side effects, no matter what the literature says.

      Rogaine, like so many other medicines, is a crude, high-cost, brute-force fix to a complex, genetically predisposed condition, so perhaps a genetic fix is the best hope.

  • Covering my solar panel? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Centurix ( 249778 ) <centurix@@@gmail...com> on Thursday May 17, 2007 @02:45AM (#19157787) Homepage
    No thanks, that's what makes me a sex machine!

  • Jean-Luc Picard will be happy (Score:4, Funny)

    by N3wsByt3 ( 758224 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @02:47AM (#19157797) Journal
    to baldly go where no man has gone before!
    • That's something that's always bothered me. They have the technology to fly around at multiples of C and weasley can make nanobots as a school project, but they haven't cured baldness?
      • "That's something that's always bothered me. They have the technology to fly around at multiples of C and weasley can make nanobots as a school project, but they haven't cured baldness?"

        In a technological sense... this makes *no* sense, of course.

        One could, however, always speculate that in that era, bald is considered 'sexy' or 'cool', or something. ;-)

        While we're at it: I think there are inconsistencies that are far worse and not easily explained. It is difficult to imagine, for instance, that death is se
      • From Patrick Stewart's wikipedia entry:

        In an interview with Michael Parkinson, he expressed gratitude for Gene Roddenberry's riposte to a reporter who said, "Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century," to which Roddenberry replied, "In the 24th Century, they wouldn't care."

        • In an interview with Michael Parkinson, he expressed gratitude for Gene Roddenberry's riposte to a reporter who said, "Surely they would have cured baldness by the 24th century," to which Roddenberry replied, "In the 24th Century, they wouldn't care."

          I'm sorry, but that's a stupid argument. Hair protects your head. That's what it's for. Having it stay around to continue protecting your head is a benefit, even if you've cured cancer and don't have to worry about a melanoma on your dome.

          Besides, there is am

  • Wikipedia (Score:5, Informative)

    by zymano ( 581466 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @03:07AM (#19157897)
    Has some latest research links.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldness#Latest_resea rch [wikipedia.org]

    They found some genes from Russians. Now they need to work on the drugs. Said something about enzymes being key.

  • Baldness (Score:4)

    by JanneM ( 7445 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @03:13AM (#19157921) Homepage
    Am I the only one that doesn't have a problem about going bald? Or having some deep complex about body hair in general?

    It's not hair or lack of it that makes people look good or bad. You tend to lose it during your early middle age, and frankly it's not the hair situation which makes you look over the hill. If you're like most Western guys it's things like your hanging belly, heavy jowls and plushy, coarse, unkempt complexion that makes you look old and pathetic, not the follicle density of your skull top. You could have a mane big enough to play in a hair band and you'd still look old and pathetic.

    • i couldn't care less if i was bald as a new born. the ladies however, beg to differ

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by JanneM ( 7445 )
        i couldn't care less if i was bald as a new born. the ladies however, beg to differ

        "The ladies" - like every woman (like every man) would have the same taste or the same priorities? Perhaps it's being the kind of person that calls women "the ladies" that pushes them off?

        Again, for most middle-aged people it's not the hair, it's the habitual Nixon-after-a-bender look that's the basic problem.
        • you completely missed the point that this kind of thing is going to be snapped up by poor bastards in their mid twenties who've lost most of their hair. of course middle aged people are less likely to give a crap, thank you captain obvious.

          and no i'm not talking about myself i've got a full head of hair, before you go off on some wild assumption.

        • Speaking from experience, some women find baldness to be sexy but the majority I have met prefer hair (or at least the option to grow a full head of hair). This is especially true for younger women (20 - 30) but as you get into the 30's women don't seem to care about it as much anymore.

          The way I've always thought of it is any woman who would get so hung up on such a superficial detail is not the kind of person I would want to spend a significant amount of time with anyhow. It reveals a lot about their cha

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fsmunoz ( 267297 )
      Exactly. Going bald is not something that people would chose if they could avoid it, but it's not the great drama some people make of it. You touch a very important point: going bald is bad when everything else in you is not that good either. I'm not talking about being "pretty", but being *fit*. That makes a world of difference, whereas hair is more or less secondary if everything else is in a decent shape.
    • I'm 26 and I'm already losing significant amounts of hair on the top and espeically the crown of my head. It'll probably be completely gone by the time I'm 30, if it takes that long. You think its no big deal? Try shaving just that part of your head for a few weeks and see how it feels. Keep me posted.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Sancho ( 17056 )
        I'm 28 with the same issues, and I feel the same way, so it really pains me to do this--but it had to be said.

        Your nick is sadly ironic.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 )
      I started losing my hair at around age 16. I was a bit worried because obviously high-school students are mostly evil and I didn't want to give them yet another name to call me, but it wasn't really visible since I had a big bushy head of long, wavy, early-1990s-tortured-artist hair at the time.

      Once school was over and the socially-active mutants I called my classmates ceased being a worry, I didn't have much of a problem with it. In fact, since I started buzzing it all off a few years ago, I find I real

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by British ( 51765 )
        I started losing my hair at around age 16. I was a bit worried because obviously high-school students are mostly evil and I didn't want to give them yet another name to call me, but it wasn't really visible since I had a big bushy head of long, wavy, early-1990s-tortured-artist hair at the time.

        Once school was over and the socially-active mutants I called my classmates ceased being a worry, I didn't have much of a problem with it. In fact, since I started buzzing it all off a few years ago, I find I really

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mark-t ( 151149 )

        ...nobody cares.

        This is untrue. While it's true that most people don't care about baldness in other people, a great deal of people *DO* care about baldness in themselves. Why? One word. Vanity.

        Vanity may not be particularly logical or practical or even seem worthy of recognition to some, but it is a simple fact that it is part and parcel of the human condition. A real and lasting cure for baldness would make its inventors very rich very quickly.

    • So true: I am balding at 34 yet I am regularly carded when buying alcohol, and people often guess I'm in my early 20s. Even taking into account the pressure to underguess age, I think that says something. And it's not just age, it doesn't seriously hinder overall attractiveness as far as i can tell: when my wife's not looking I can generally win the attention of other fine females ;)

      That said, I do wish I had more hair. I don't know why... it hasn't seemed to interefere with my life in any meaningful way

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by the_weasel ( 323320 )
      I started going bald at 17. After 4 years, I had the classic 'George Costanza' crown - a fringe of hair around my head at the level of my ears, and a big old bald spot on the top. That seemed to be the equilibrium, and how things stand today, 15 years later.

      Needless to say, it made me look significantly older, and not in any good way. I keep my head entirely shaved now, something I started at 19.

      Nowadays, having your head completely shaved in western society is completely acceptable for a young person. It h
  • It reads like going bald is a bad thing. It's normal, it's natural. Ditto going grey, getting wrinkles and whatever else age brings. Why are we so obsessed with looking like a lie? It's not healthy.
    And no, I'm not bald (yet) but going that way but there's no way I'm fighting it. Heck, it even has plus points - makes washing your hair and worrying about what style to keep it in a whole lot simpler - just razz it all off with a grade 2 every couple of weeks.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by eggegg ( 754560 )
      You are funny. First, death is normal and natural, but only the mentally infirm, religious zealot, or deluded refuse to think it's a bad thing.

      Second, nothing says "obsessed with looking like a lie" more than "razz[ing] it all off with a grade 2 every couple of weeks".

      Third, like it or not, people in modern western culture embrace the styling, coloring, cut, and decoration of hair as a significant expression of one's individuality, identity, or alliance with others. It's something of a tradition amongst ho
      • >maybe you are consistently rude
        It's rude saying people shouldn't be self-obsessed with their looks?
        Clearly we're on different wavelengths beacase the rest of your post struck me as just plain bizarre.
        I've got a bald patch on top, a thin bit at the front and the usual back & sides stuff but it really doesn't bother me and I certainly don't feel a need to be in alliences c/o my hair cut.
  • So we got viagra to keep people up and we'll soon have $name_to_add_to_spamfilter to cure the loss of hair, but still no reliable cure for cancer and let's not talk about AIDS.

    But why?

    Money, people. Simply and plainly, money.

    Imagine you found a cure for AIDS. A cure. Not some half-assed treatment like we do now (though, treating something is more profitable than curing... but I ramble). What would immediately happen? The WHO would start jumping to your neck and throttle you 'til you let that (presumably) as

    • So we got viagra to keep people up and we'll soon have $name_to_add_to_spamfilter to cure the loss of hair, but still no reliable cure for cancer and let's not talk about AIDS.

      But why?

      Money, people. Simply and plainly, money.
      Yup, you're exactly right. There's absolutely no way that we don't have cures for cancer and AIDS because they're actually difficult problems to solve.

  • Gene therapy is so uncool... graze your head! (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kensai7 ( 1005287 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @04:08AM (#19158189)
    Funny thing though. In this week's Nature there is this article [nature.com] where American scientists speculate on an alternative method to promote de novo follicle growth [in mice] via... grazing of the scalp.

    I quote the scoop from the New Scientist's entry:
    Could a graze on the head help cure baldness? Biologists had thought that once mammals lose their hair follicles, they are gone forever. Now George Cotsarelis at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and his colleagues have shown that adult mice can regenerate follicles when their skin is wounded.

    The team cut out a square centimetre of skin from the backs of mice two weeks after their hair follicles had formed. After 14 to 19 days the wounds had closed and formed new. When the researchers added Wnt proteins - signalling molecules usually involved in embryonic development - the number of follicles doubled and the skin healed with less scarring. This suggests that wound healing may trigger an embryonic state in skin, says Cotsarelis. Surprisingly, the new follicles originate from stem cells that are not usually involved in creating hair follicles.

    Cotsarelis hopes the findings could lead to new therapies for baldness. "The idea would be to disrupt the skin to trigger the embryonic pathways, and then come in with the Wnt proteins," he says.
    • Dude, that's the same study. RTFA?
    • The team cut out a square centimetre of skin from the backs of mice two weeks after their hair follicles had formed. After 14 to 19 days the wounds had closed and formed new.

      cool, it works for back hair! I'll never have a bald back again!

  • Bah - going bald hasn't hurt my success rate... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lendude ( 620139 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @04:16AM (#19158235)
    ...with the ladies.

    I'm still 0 out of 100 somethin' and counting.

  • I wonder what Nike would pay me to grow a nice thick swish on my back for summer.
    • What's really funny is that many people would pay good money to grow a Nike swish.

      And in todays climate would then likely get sued for copyright/trademark infringement !
  • And if they smell bad it's a plus.
    But it have to be ordered by the pizza delivery guy.

  • Hmm (Score:4, Informative)

    by mapkinase ( 958129 ) on Thursday May 17, 2007 @06:46AM (#19159005) Homepage Journal
    First, as usual, missing ref to orig article in Nature [nature.com]. Now to the article:

    hair growth can actually be encouraged using a single gene.
    If you look at corresponding KEGG entry [genome.jp] for gene Wnt10b that was expressed in regenerated follicles you will find that besides Wnt signalling pathway [genome.jp][PIC!] (also here [wikipedia.org]) mentioned in the paper. this particular gene is also involved in Basal cell carcinoma [genome.jp] pathway.

    Both pathways are cancer-related and the first one is fairly complex, so there will be (hopefully) a lot of (lengthy) research intended to find out possible side effects.
  • If they can figure out how to stop hair from growing on one's back, ears, and nose, that will be where the smart money goes...

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