Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Hair-brained Idea?

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/2209.html

Scientists have discovered that hair follicles actually harbor a ready reserve of stem cells which enable hair to regenerate. It turns out that these stem cells can be tweaked to grow into brain tissue.

If we're all walking around with stem cells on top of our heads, then the cost of doing stem cell research could be drastically reduced. After all, even with the outrageous price of haircuts these days, it's got to be cheaper to get stem cells from hair follicles than from embryos.

If this pans out it will not only solve the moral problems of using embryonic stem cells, but might might lead to a revolution in hair restoration as well. Why not just use the same stem cells to grow more hair?

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