Indiana University School of Medicine Researchers, have created the first lab-grown skin tissue with hair follicles. This skin concept, developed using stem cells from mice, more closely resembles natural hair than existing concepts and may prove useful for testing drugs, understanding hair growth, and reducing the practice of animal testing. 

Moreover, several methods of creating skin tissue in the lab have already been achieved, their ability to mimic real skin falls short. While real skin consists of 20 or more cell types, these concept only have about five or six. Most notably, none of these existing skin tissues is capable of hair growth.

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Karl Koehler, an assistant professor of otolaryngology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, originally began using pluripotent stem cells from mice, which can develop into any type of cells in the body, to create organoids–miniature organs in vitro–that model the inner ear. But Koehler and his team discovered they were generating skin cells in addition to inner ear tissue, and their research shifted towards coaxing the cells into sprouting hair follicles.

After finding this recipe for lab-grown hair follicles, the scientist must now work to overcome a new roadblock in the study of in vitro hair development–physical limitations that prevent the hairs from shedding and regenerating. The shape of the tissue in culture causes the hair follicles to grow into the dermal cysts, leaving them with nowhere to shed. Once researchers figure out how to allow the hair follicles to complete their natural cycle from the artificial environment of the culture medium, Koehler and his team believe the organoids could have important implications for toxicology and medicine. Moreover, Koehler thinks the mouse skin organoid technique could be used as a blueprint to generate human skin organoids.