By Michniak | Published November 27, 2013
A CDR Colleague on the Path to Success- Who is a great friend and supporter of the CDR? Who has taken on a number of key roles by participating on numerous occasions as a CDR event speaker? Who has a served as member of the programming committees for CDR symposia, and servined as a keen supporter of women in research?
Who is this enthusiastic colleague? Well, it is Dr. Angela Christiano from the Departments of Dermatology, Genetics & Development and Systems Biology at Columbia University in New York. She has recently made the news with her published 2013 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) entitled “Microenvironmental reprogramming by three dimensional culture enables dermal papilla cells to induce de novo human hair follicle growth” (www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1309970110).
This new approach has the potential to lead to a new and effective treatment for baldness. The technique has been successful in mice. New hair has successfully been grown on human skin that has been grafted onto the animals. The current treatments often move hair follicles from other areas on the head and are not able to increase the number of follicles present. This technique looks very promising however; more studies need to be conducted before we can apply this treatment in human clinical trials. For additional information see the video on www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfLLkmY_t9k
