Mice hold the key to male baldness cure, scientists reveal
Hair wearing thin but you can’t afford a terribly expensive transplant like Wayne Rooney? Not to worry, mice might hold the key to your baldness woes.
It sounds a little like a trap to us too, but researchers in Japan have managed to grow a tuft of hair on a hairless mouse using stem cells taken from the scalp of a balding man.
According to a report on Yahoo News, the researches in Tokyo University used those stem cells to create follicles of hair from scratch, which were then transplanted onto hairless mouse who subsequently grew a Mohawk-like tuft of hair just behind its ears (see picture below).
A particularly rebellious mouse this one, apparently.
As a result of their research, the lads and lasses at Tokyo University reckon that they could comb across a cure for baldness within three years, but similar to Wayne Rooney’s luscious new hairstyle, it won’t exactly come at a snip.
They also believe that it would be more practical in a reconstructive situation where natural hair transplants aren’t possible and that they are not yet sure whether their method could be used to recreate an entire head of hair, as opposed to just papering over a bald patch or two.
Still, although it seems as if there’s a long way to go until any defnitive baldness cure is found, baldies out there will take hope from any potential methods, even one as hair-raising as this.
Mice work lads.
