In the News – Hair Stem Cells Regeneration

Snippet from the article:

In one of the first studies to look at the population behavior of a large pool of stem cells in thousands of hair follicles – as opposed to the stem cell of a single hair follicle – Keck School of Medicine of USC scientists deciphered how hair stem cells in mice and rabbits can communicate with each other and encourage mutually coordinated regeneration, according to an article published in the April 29 edition of the journal Science.

The team collaborated with mathematical biologists from the University of Oxford on the article, “Self-Organizing and Stochastic Behaviors During the Regeneration of Hair Stem Cells,” which was just named an Editor’s Choice in Science Signaling, a sister publication of Science.

The researchers analyzed over many months the changes in the hair growth patterns on shaved mice and rabbits, which indicate cyclic progression between active and quiescent states by stem cells in hair follicles.

Read the full text — USC Researchers Learn How Hair Stem Cell Populations Achieve Large-Scale Tissue Regeneration and Growth

Hair stem cell communication in mice and rabbits is different than that of humans, but the article states that the study’s results are promising. This builds upon a 2008 study of mice and their hair growth patterns that we wrote about back then.