Star Trek’s Sir Patrick Stewart may soon have to visit a hairdresser after breakthrough in hunt for cure for baldness
SIR Patrick Stewart may soon be boldly going where he has not gone before — to a hairdresser.
The Star Trek actor is among those who would benefit from a breakthrough in the hunt for a treatment for baldness.
It follows the discovery of a protein which fuels hair growth and might lead to a miracle cure.
In experiments, US researchers got mice to sprout three times as many hairs by surgically removing their adrenal glands.
These release the stress hormone corticosterone which blocks the protein — called GAS6.
Stress has long been known to be a factor in male baldness.
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Sir Patrick, 80, who played Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek, lost all his hair in a year at 19.
Prof Hsu said: "Chronic, sustained exposure to stressors can profoundly affect tissue, although the mechanisms by which these changes occur are largely unknown.
"The stress hormone corticosterone is derived from the adrenal gland and is the rodent equivalent of cortisol in humans."
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