Generating human hair follicle cell lines and 3-D histiotypic models of the human hair follicle using human induced pluripotent stem cells

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Strategic Research Priority: World Class BioscienceHair related disorders are not life threatening; however, they can cause psychological distress to individual sufferers due to the aesthetics of hair loss and societal perceptions of hair. Hair loss may refer to two physiopathologies; increased daily hair shedding (effluvium) or hairlessness (alopecia). Genetic or environmental factors can instigate hair disorders in both males and females. There are many different categories of hair disorder; the most common being androgenetic alopecia (AGA) affecting up to 70% of males, and 40% of females. While currently some types of hair loss disorders have readily available and efficacious therapies; the treatment for some subtypes of disorder are extremely limited. Bioengineering of the hair follicle, coupled with molecular biology could be used to better explore future therapeutic approaches and further the current understanding of hair follicle biology.A recent major milestone of cell biology was the development of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). In 2006, Yamanaka reported that cells with a similar profile to embryonic stem cells (ECSs) could be produced from murine somatic cells. This was achieved through overexpression of four key factors; OCT4, SOX2, KLF4 and MYC, now termed the 'Yamanaka factors'. Since its origin, iPSC technology has rapidly developed due to the promise it shows in the fields of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. Importantly, there is also an application of iPSC technology in disease modelling, ushering in the advent of 'disease in a dish' models which have been used for basic understanding of disease mechanisms, as well as for drug discovery and screening. In this project, we aim to use human iPSCs to develop a robust differentiation protocol to generate hair follicle lineage cells. Additionally, we aim to use generated cell lineages to produce 2D and 3D models of the hair follicle to better investigate hair biology in both health and disease.