Hair follicles (red) grow radially out of spherical skin organoids JIYOON LEE AND KARL KOEHLER

Researchers have grown hair follicles from mouse pluripotent stem cell lines for the first time. Until now, hair follicles could only be grown in vitro using primary cells isolated from embryonic skin. The new model could have applications for studying mechanisms of inducing hair follicle growth, evaluating inhibitory drugs and hair growth, and modeling skin diseases.

J. Lee et al., “Hair follicle development in mouse pluripotent stem cell-derived skin organoids,” Cell Reports, doi:10.1016/j.celrep.2017.12.007, 2018.

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