I’m wondering if they can grow skin, then why not skin from the scalp with hair? While I don’t relish the idea of getting scalped, if it gets me a full head of hair, it’s worth it.
From reading the article, although they say the scientists have grown “skin” from stem cells, it looks like they’ve actually grown only the epidermis part of the skin, not the underlying dermis, and obviously not any of the specialized organs in the skin, like hair follicles, sweat glands, sebaceous glands, small blood vessels, and muscles like the erector pili.
I think it would be much more complex to grow skin with hair using stem cells. NOT impossible, but more complicated than this. Probably – as Dr. Xu said in his debriefing on his own recent stem cell experiments – you’d also need trichogenic DP cells.
This in vitro grown epidermis however MAY have an interesting application: It MAY serve as a good substrate in which US and European doctors can experiment with cell injections, in the absence of government approval for human clinical trials or testing.
Dr. Nigam, what do you think?
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by epiker0[/postedby]
I’m wondering if they can grow skin, then why not skin from the scalp with hair? While I don’t relish the idea of getting scalped, if it gets me a full head of hair, it’s worth it.
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Thanks for that informative response. I’d think it’s only a matter of time that they could also produce dermal skin-but I think ultimately it will come down to stem cells. I’ve been reading about greater successes with using stem cells to heal organs like the heart. If they can just figure out which stem cells would allow for the creation of those types of follicles that stay permanently in our scalp then we’d have the cure.
Fortunately even in my 40s I still have most of my hair but it’s thinned a fair bit. My bald friends have expressed some jealousy in their jokes…but I’m not too far off from starting to look like I’ll get a receding hairline and a bald spot on the back of my head. It’s a far cry from my wavy locks from my 20s but I guess we all reminisce about things like that.