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Baldness cure in a bottle on shelves soon

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Press Trust of India London

They found that a single enzyme has a major role to play in male-pattern baldness, as experienced by the Prince William.

The researchers are already in talks with pharmaceutical firms about making the product, which would work by stopping the effects of a single guilty enzyme.

The US-based dermatologists announced earlier this year that they had found that an enzyme, called prostaglandin D2 (PGD2), instructed follicles to stop producing hair.

Scientists identified it by screening 250 genes implicated in hair loss, the 'Telegraph' reported.

George Cotsarelis, head of dermatology at Pennsylvania University, said that the one responsible for levels of PGD2 played "the major role".

 

He said he was now in talks with several drugs firms about creating the anti-baldness product.

Drugs are already available in the market that reduce PGD2 levels, as it has been implicated in asthma, holding out the hope that developing a related product for baldness could be speedy.

Cotsarelis and his colleagues found that in 17 men with hair loss, PGD2 levels were three times higher in bald spots as compared to hairy areas.

"We really do think if you remove the inhibition [caused by PGD2}, you get longer hair," Cotsarelis said earlier when the study was published in the journal 'Science Translational Medicine'.

He said the finding raised the possibility of not only stopping hair loss, but of bald men also being able to regrow full heads of hair.

  

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First Published: Aug 20 2012 | 1:05 PM IST

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