GENETIC NEWS

Balding Men May Get Help From Stem Cell, Gene Discoveries
Those with slick domes, thinning tops and receding hairlines may one day be helped by the discovery of genes that put people at risk for baldness and a stem cell that may replenish hair follicles.
Two studies released today in the journal Nature Genetics may help explain why some people lose their hair, and how they may eventually be able to grow it back, scientists from London- based GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the U.K. and Sweden said.

Hair loss affects about one in four Caucasian men before age 30. While drugs such as Johnson & Johnson's Rogaine and Merck & Co.'s Propecia can help hair regrow or prevent loss in some patients, they don't work for everyone. Treatments that target the DNA responsible may be more promising, said Tim Spector, who led the gene study.

``Early prediction before hair loss starts may lead to some interesting therapies that are more effective than treating late-stage hair loss,'' said Spector, a researcher in Kings College London's department of twin research and genetic epidemiology, in a statement.

Spector and colleagues analyzed the genes of 578 men in Switzerland with early-onset hair-loss, and compared them against those of 547 others who were retaining their hair. They then confirmed their findings against groups from the U.K., Iceland and the Netherlands, studying about 5,000 people in all.

Those with hair loss commonly shared the same variations of two genes that together made them seven times more likely to suffer baldness, researchers from Kings College London and GlaxoSmithKline Plc wrote in the journal Nature Genetics.

More Study Needed

The research associates the genes with hair loss, though further studies are needed to prove the connection. The genetic variations were also found in women, though the link wasn't statistically significant and more research is needed, the authors said. The study was partly funded by Glaxo.

In the stem cell study, researchers led by Viljar Jaks of Sweden's Karolinska Institute examined mouse hair follicles for signs of rapid growth. They found a protein, called Lgr5, on the surface of long-lived, active stem cells in hair cells; the same protein has been identified on stem cells in the intestine, they said in the study.

Cells bearing the Lgr5 marker were capable of maintaining hair follicles for as long as 14 months, the researchers said. In mouse studies, just a few of these cells were able to build an entire hair follicle, they said in the study.

The search for a cure for baldness began at least 3,000 years ago. Ancient Egyptians treated hair loss with fats from crocodiles, geese, lions, ibex, snake and hippopotamuses, according to the U.S.-based Coalition of Independent Hair Restoration Physicians.

`Balding Pattern'

Two of three men will be bald or have a ``balding pattern'' of hair loss by 60, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The condition may be hereditary in more than 80 percent of cases, and has also been linked to maladies including heart disease and metabolic syndrome, the authors wrote.

Americans spent more than $115 million on hair transplant therapy last year, the authors said, and Merck's Propecia earned the Whitehouse Station, New Jersey-based drugmaker $405.4 million.