The hair follicle cells in mouse skin glow green as they develop in this microscopic image. These cells later sprouted glowing green hair. (AntiCancer, Inc.)	Glowing Green Mice Scientists Seek Disease, Balding Cures in Mouse Hair By Amanda Onion Sept. 10 — Scientists who created mice with glowing green hair say their work could someday help lead to treatments for baldness and graying, and perhaps a host of other, more serious diseases.

MORE ON THIS STORY RELATED STORIES • The Basics of Hair Transplantation • Scientists Splice Fluorescent Gene Into Monkey • The Balding Truth • Artist's Glowing, Live Rabbit Creation Causes Fuss • Fluorescent Potato Could Reduce Water Use

Researchers at AntiCancer, Inc. first began tackling baldness 12 years ago for chemotherapy patients who lose hair following treatments. Since then researchers at the San Diego clinic, the University of Pennsylvania and other labs have been making gradual steps toward finding a treatment for the condition by manipulating genes in hair follicles, mostly in mice.

Not only could these hair follicles be genetically modified to sprout more robust hair, the hope is they might also be modified to carry genes that would deliver a steady dose of therapeutic cures for people with diabetes, Parkinson's, cancer and other diseases. In this way, a patient's treatment could literally be delivered through their own hair follicles.

"I think this could be done in the relatively near future," says Hoffman. "It could be possible to do it in a year or two in mice."

Making Skin Sprout Green Hair

In the latest results, released today in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hoffman's group removed skin grafts from dead mice and introduced the glowing green gene, GFP, by injecting the skin with a virus containing the gene. The team also applied an enzyme called collagenase to the mouse skin, which made the hair follicles more receptive to the glowing green gene.

They then grafted the skin onto other mice and found these skin patches persistently sprouted hair that glowed green under blue light.

Hoffman said the technique might be applied someday to improve human hair transplants. Hair transplants are normally taken from the side of the head and grafted onto the top of the head. By genetically manipulating the hair follicles of the skin graft, they could be prompted to grow more hair.

But more importantly, the researchers think their method might be used as a screening technique to hunt down particular genes.

"The problem is balding is not a simple disease and we don't yet know about any gene involved in balding," Hoffman says. "This method we developed might be one way to search for these genes."

Until exact balding genes are found, scientists can't cure baldness, but only practice ways of manipulating hair follicles.

Smearing on Genes

Previous work by AntiCancer and by George Cotsarelis of the University of Pennsylvania has introduced genes into hair follicles by encasing them into liposomes — microscopic man-made spheres of fatty material — and then smearing the liposomes onto bare skin. Hoffman's group did this on mouse skin and Cotsarelis did this on human skin that had been grafted onto the backs of mice.

The liposomes were less efficient at delivering genes to the hair follicles, but Hoffman believes the method might someday be improved to offer a more convenient way of treating baldness than hair grafts — once balding genes are found.

More is known about hair coloring.

Researchers have genetically modified albino rats and mice so they sprout black hair. That's a key first step toward developing a genetic treatment for graying hair, although little is still known about how to grow hair in a range of shades and colors.

"Mice come in all different kinds of colors," says Hoffman. "Once we understand what genes cause what pigments we can get more colors."

Gerard Krueger, a dermatologist at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center in Salt Lake City remains skeptical that this kind of treatment will be available in the near future, pointing out that even if methods work on mice, they might not work on humans.

The Incredible Hair Follicle

"It's very clear you can get genes down hair follicles," says Krueger. "The question is how do you do it in humans in a way that is safe. Cosmetic treatments especially have to be extremely safe to justify."

Ironically, finding treatments for the cosmetic problems of balding and graying might prove more difficult than using hair follicles to treat more serious diseases. This is because researchers will need to modify all more nearly all hair follicles on a person's head to create a full head of non-gray hair. But only a few modified hair follicles could be enough to deliver treatments for diabetes and other diseases.

"The hair follicle is an incredible tool," says Hoffman. "And it's an interesting biological subject. The deeper you dig, the more you want to learn."