Hair Research

This volume covers aspects of hair research and provides an understanding for research in the future which will lead to the development of better treatments for hair disorders.

Several years ago a friendly looking young man walked into my office at the University Department of Dermatology in Cologne, introduced himself as a diplomate chemist, executive member of a family-owned, rather small German company manufacturing hair care products, and proposed to me straight forward to organize an international meeting on hair research. In view of the large number of new developments in the field something like this should be done after all, he said; he also promised to provide financial support. Such a meeting should be on the highest possible level, I said; and he agreed. I took the challenge and my visitor kept his promise. Three years later the First International Hair Congress was organized at the sophisticated new Congress Center in Hamburg, in which 630 participants from 36 countries were registered. After three and a half days of formal sessions, informal discussions, workshops and poster presentations our unanimous feeling was that this has been a most successful meeting. The young chemist was right. The idea was excellent. The growth and presence of hair and its distribution over the human body as a cosmetic attribute has become during the last two decades a matter of tremendous emotional significance. Hair can be rather easily formed according to one's sence of style, representing his personal image and his social feeling. If it becomes unacceptable or out of fashion, the hair style can be easily changed; the hair regrows as a biological requisite, without any additional cost.

Increasingly, managers must make decisions based on almost unlimited information. How can they navigate and organize this vast amount of data? Essentials of Business Research Methods provides research techniques for people who aren't data analysts. The authors offer a straightforward, hands-on approach to the vital managerial process of gathering and using data to make clear business decisions. They include critical topics, such as the increasing role of online research, ethical issues, data mining, customer relationship management, and how to conduct information-gathering activities more effectively in a rapidly changing business environment. This is the only text that includes a chapter on qualitative data analysis, and the coverage of quantitative data analysis is more extensive, and much easier to understand than in other texts. The book features a realistic continuing case throughout that enables students to see how business research information is used in the real world. It includes applied research examples in all chapters, as well as ethical dilemma mini cases, and exercises.

It is now thirty years since William Montagna and Richard Ellis edited 'The Biology of Hair Growth". In his introduction, Stephen Rothman, of the University of Chicago, USA and one of the driving forces behind research on skin at the time, wrote: 'The pilary system is a perfect micr9cosmic structure. In this microcos mos we find birth, development, ageing and death, activity and rest, color for mation and decolorification, greasiness and dryness, infection and sterilization, hypertrophy and atrophy, Qenign tumours and malignant ones." He foresaw the human pilary system as a model for the study of a multitude of human diseases including ageing and cancer. It was not, how ever, until the seventies that the development of micro-biochemical tech niques indeed allowed the use of the human hair follicle as a convenient biopsy tissue for Biomedical Research in general. Measurement of enzyme activities, and important co-factors, and culturing of cells from single follicles all became possible. In the eighties dermal papilla cells were grown in cul ture and this opened the way to study hair differentiation in vitro. Studying hair differentiation is, in fact, studying growth regulation and it is this aspect that by far transcends the importance of studying hair growth itself. Let us not forget that metastatic prostate cancer is treated with the same drug -cyproterone acetate -that is used for the treatment of alopecia and hirsutism in women.

Human hair is the subject of a remarkably wide range of scientific investigations. Its chemical and physical properties are of importance to the cosmetics industry, forensic scientists and to biomedical researchers. The fifth edition of this book confirms its position as the definitive monograph on the subject. Previous editions were recognized as “concise and thorough” (Journal of the American Chemical Society), “an invaluable resource” (Canadian Forensic Science Society Journal), and “highly recommended” (Textile Research Journal). Chemical and Physical Behavior of Human Hair is a teaching guide and reference volume for cosmetic chemists and other scientists in the hair products industry, academic researchers studying hair and hair growth, textile scientists and forensic specialists. Features of the Fifth Edition: Recent advances in the classification and characterization of the different proteins and genes in IF and keratin associated proteins in human hair are described. The mechanism and incidence of hair growth and loss and hair density vs. age of males & females are described for Asians, Caucasians and Africans in different scalp regions. Details of hair surface lipids and cuticle membranes provide a better understanding of the surface and organization of the CMC and its involvement in stress strain is presented. Recent evidence demonstrates a more bilateral structure in curly hair and a more concentric arrangement of different cortical proteins in straighter hair. SNPs involved in hair form (curl and coarseness) and pigmentation and genes in alopecia and hair abnormalities are described. The latest biosynthetic scheme for hair pigments and structures for these and the different response of red versus brown-black pigments to photodegradation is described. A new method for curvature on 2,400 persons from different countries and groups is used to assign curvature throughout this book. Additional data for age and effects on diameter, ellipticity, elastic modulus, break stress and other parameters are presented with much larger data sets featuring statistical analyses. Hair conditioning, strength, breakage, split ends, flyaway, shine, combing ease, body, style retention, manageability and feel parameters are defined and described. A new section of different life stages by age groups considering collective and individual changes in hair fiber properties with age and how these affect assembly properties.

“Aged? But he does not appear aged, just look, his hair has remained young!” Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (1913–27) The appearance of hair plays an important role in peoples’ overall physical appe- ance and self-perception. With today’s increasing life-expectation, the desire to look youthful plays a bigger role than ever. The hair care industry has become aware of this, and capable to deliver active products that are directed toward meeting this c- sumer demand. The discovery of pharmacological targets and the development of safe and effective drugs such as minoxidil and fnasteride also indicate strategies of the drug industry for maintenance of healthy and beautiful hair in the young and old. The study of hair aging focuses on two main streams of interest: On the one hand, the esthetic problem of aging hair and its management, in other words everything that happens outside the skin; on the other hand, the biological problem of aging hair, in terms of microscopic, biochemical, and molecular changes, in other words the “secret life” of the hair follicle in the depth of the skin. Hair aging comprises hair shaft aging, and aging of the hair follicle. The former involves weathering and photoaging of the hair shaft, while the latter manifests as decrease of melanocyte function (graying) and decrease in hair production (alopecia).

This book aims to comprehensively review the current cell-based strategies under investigation to achieve the regeneration of human hair follicles. The unique capacity of the human hair follicle to self-renew explains why this complex “mini-organ” has always attracted so much interest as a model for researchers to study stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. The hair follicle is considered a main reservoir of cutaneous stem cells, containing several pools of epithelial, melanocyte, and mesenchymal stem cells involved in hair follicle self-regeneration and pigmentation. In addition, while some of the different follicular cell types contribute to hair shaft growth, others participate in very important interfollicular functions such as dermal remodeling, re-epithelialization after wounding, and cutaneous stem cell homeostasis. The idea of human hair follicle regeneration either “de novo” or by activating dormant miniaturized follicles is not new, yet still continues to arouse enormous interest in the pursuit of a definitive cure for baldness. In contrast to hair follicle regeneration in mice, the attempts made with human follicles have been disappointing in terms of efficiency. However, recent advances in stem cell biology—as well as the appearance of new technologies like 3D printing—have revived expectations in this field of research. This book is divided into four sections. The first part includes an overview of the strategies used in hair follicle regeneration and a historical summary of the most important achievements to date. Parts two and three comprise the main body of the book, with detailed descriptions of the cells and tissue structures involved in hair follicle regeneration, followed by an elaboration of the different therapeutic strategies, engineering techniques, and a clinician’s perspective of stem cell-based therapies in hair loss treatments. Finally, the fourth part reviews the important contribution of the hair follicle in healing cutaneous wounds through the regeneration and remodeling of the dermis and epidermis after injury, as well as wound induced hair follicle neogenesis that occurs when the skin is injured.