Hair-raising Growth

The reason why many men bald with age is poorly understood – but an important discovery could open up new avenues of research. Hair growth dramatically speeded up in mice that were genetically engineered to lack a protein found in follicles, called FOXC1. Although the mice grew fur thick and fast to begin with, they prematurely turned grey and began to go bald. Scientists concluded that FOXC1 controls hair stem cell activity in specialised niches called bulges, the follicle’s ‘factories’ where new hair is made. The protein’s absence put the cells into overdrive – but the effort exhausted them, causing the number of active bulges to reduce. Pictured is a mouse follicle with stem cells stained light green and bulges red. The hair shaft is darker green and the centres, or nuclei, of other follicle cells are blue.

Written by Mick Warwicker

Mick Warwicker

Writer

A freelance communications consultant and writer, Mick specialises in science and education. A science graduate and award-winning print and broadcast journalist, he was Head of Communications at Newcastle University from 2000–2011.

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• Image courtesy of Elaine Fuchs
• Howard Hughes Medical Institute, The Rockefeller University, NY, USA
• Image copyright held by original authors
• Research published in PNAS, February 2016