Session E: Innovations in Hair Research

Abstract

Dan Peer Laboratory of Nanomedicine, Department of Cell Research and Immunology, George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and Center for Nanosicence and Nanotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel. E-mail: [e-mail] The hair follicle (HF) corresponds to a miniature organ, which during the normal lifespan of a human regenerates itself more than 10 times. Existing follicles undergo cycles of growth (anagen), regression (catagen) and rest (telogen) where the responsible cells for this remarkable process are the HF SCs (HFSCs) which reside in the bulge region. The hair cycle represents a remarkable model for study the regulation of SC quiescence and activation in the context of SC niche cross-talk. In recent years, the advances in SCs isolation methods enable the existence of SCs transcription profile, revealing a list of genes express highly in HFSCs. In-vivo manipulations of gene expression levels in SCs at their niche may clarify gene function and uncover the major players that are involved in regulation of SCs fate. However, elucidating gene function using classical genetic methods, such as transgenic mice, consume major resources and time for each candidate gene examined. In addition, gene knockout harbor a complete ablation that harden results interpretations by promoting compensation mechanisms. Our lab specialized in the development and characterization of targeted nanovectors with the ability to deliver therapeutic payloads including RNAi. Here, we present some of our efforts to develop topical RNAi delivery platforms to target specifically the HFSCs and to exploit these strategies as new approach to study SC biology in general and more specifically to study how to manipulate HFSCs fate.