BY PLUCKING out a few hairs, doctors can grow skin grafts from a patient’s
own cells.
The technique could replace the painful method of taking skin from another
part of the body for grafts or tissue culturing, Modex Therapeutics of Lausanne,
Switzerland, told a conference in London last week. “We’re changing patients’
hair to patients’ skin,” says Edward Baetge, the company’s chief scientific
officer.
Called Epidex, the technique uses the stem cells found in hair follicles,
which can be transformed into skin cells. “Doctors can pluck hair from any point
on the body,” Baetge says. Then they send between 20…
