An exciting discovery that could change the approach to hair restoration is revealed today.
With the study’s authors suggesting their findings could also potentially play a part in male pattern baldness as well, it may pave the way for new treatments and procedures.
US researchers have discovered that regulatory T cells (Tregs) – a type of immune cell generally associated with controlling inflammation – directly trigger stem cells in the skin to promote healthy hair growth.
Without these, researchers found the stem cells cannot regenerate hair follicles and so leads to baldness.
This also means that understanding the regulation and cycling of follicles in autoimmune alopecia might well help in determining what causes hair growth to slow down and eventually stop in male pattern balding.
Greg Williams, of the British Association of Hair Restoration Surgery (BAHRS), says:
‘Any new piece of the jigsaw that makes the picture of immune hair loss aetiology clearer is exciting! A better understanding of the role played by Tregs will pave the way for developing new therapeutic options.
However, he cautions against us getting excited anytime soon that new remedies are just around the corner.
He says: ‘It takes a long time for new discoveries in the basic science lab to make their way through pharma development and onto the pharmacy shelf so we are still a while off from seeing clinical treatments based on this scientific work.’
Like other immune cells, most Tregs reside in the body's lymph nodes, but some live permanently in other tissues, where they seem to have evolved to assist with local metabolic functions as well as playing their normal anti-inflammatory role.
The authors say that ordinarily it is thought that immune cells come into a tissue to fight infection, while stem cells are there to regenerate the tissue after it's damaged.
What this new research suggests is that stem cells and immune cells have to work together to make regeneration possible.