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In
June 1998 Dr. Angela Christiano, Assistant Professor of Dermatology,
and Genetics and Development, at the Columbia University College
of Physicians & Surgeons
made history when she announced the discovery of the first gene
responsible for hair loss named "hairless". 
Her team
of researchers found the gene responsible for alopecia universalis,
a hereditary disorder in which people are born without eyelashes
or eyebrows, go bald and never grown any body hair. The
researchers studied a Pakistani family suffering from Alopecia
Universalis and used their genes to
identify a mutation in the hairless gene that was associated
with their hair loss. For
the first time ever researchers were able to map a human gene
for inherited baldness by scanning every human chromosome and
localizing this gene onto the short arm of chromosome number
eight.
Several
months later a
second distinct mutation in the hairless gene was identified
and linked with a rare, autosomal recessive form of complete
hair loss in a large family of Irish Travellers, a nomadic,
gypsy-like population that has remained reproductively isolated
for centuries in Ireland. Affected individuals have no head
or body hair and also have no eyelashes or eyebrow hair. Based
on their research, Dr Christiano believes that the hairless
gene appears to function at the cellular transition from natal
hair to the first adult hair cycle, and, if compromised, hair
growth completely ceases and new hair is never induced, and
the result is a complete form of inherited baldness.
According
to Dr Christiano this finding is the first indication that we
may be able to regulate the hair growth cycle, trigger the growth
of new hair and possibly treat hair loss through gene therapy
administered topically via the hair follicles. Some companies
have already been developing means to deliver gene therapy to
the follicles, but the major limitation has been the discovery
of an actual gene that causes Male Pattern Hair Loss. Since
Male Pattern loss has different causes to Alopecia Areata and
Universalis which are thought to be autoimmune disorders, its
unknown whether a gene for this will ever be able to be discovered.
What
is for certain is that gene therapy and the recent mapping of
the human genome will change the way hair loss treatments are
developmed in the near future.
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