Gray hair got you down? Scientists may have a cure for that.

Okay, maybe not a cure. But, more information about why youre going gray, and what can be done about it.

Dr. Melissa Harris, an assistant professor at the University of Alabama at Birminghams Department of Biology, has spent the last ten years studying melanocyte stem cells and what happens when they fail.

Harris runs a molecular biology lab at UAB and uses CRISPR gene editing tools, single-cell sequencing studies, and network analysis algorithms. She uses gray hair as a model for aging, because she doesnt always need a microscopeshe can see the state of your melanocyte stem cells right away. If hair is all one color, Harris said, the melanocyte stem cells are healthy; but if there are grays mixed in, something isnt right.

Gray hair isnt always an inevitable part of aging, the university said. Through Harris research, shes learned that age isnt the only reason these cells fail, and now Harris is working with gray-haired mice to show there could be a way to bring the cells- and hair pigments- back to life. Shes doing that by working with a biotech startup to study an experimental compound that appears to restore hair color long-term in those mice.

Harris work applies to autoimmune diseases and to melanoma, but she said her primary goal is to understand why somatic stem cells (those found in muscles, bones, and organs that are responsible for tissue regeneration, immune defense, hair color and more) start to fail as a person ages. Most of those stem cell populations are hard to work with in the lab, Harris said, but melanocyte stem cells are an exception.

Does hair graying cause you to die? Harris said. No, you can watch melanocyte stem cells from birth to the end. But, she added that the same cant be said for cells like hematopoetic stem cells, which pump red blood cells in bone marrow. You cant live long without them, Harris said.

Her research will reveal more about the bodys aging process and the life cycles of those stem cells.

Harris is often known as the gray-hair lady in the lab, but she stresses that her gray hair research has bigger implications. Everyone gets gray hair It is considered a vanity science, she said. I am not an abnormally vain person My lab has picked the model that is the most appropriate method to investigate what happens to stem cells as we age.

The work has earned her a grant from the NIHs National Institute of Aging. A paper published by her lab in 2018 showed that MITF, a certain protein that is the master regulator turning on pigmentation genes also represses the innate immune system, according to UAB. The university said when Harris worked with the MITF-deficient mice with a virus, the melanocyte stem cells suffered and the mice got gray hair. The study was globally recognized, and featured in several publications.

Perhaps, in an individual who is healthy yet predisposed for gray hair, because they produce less MITF, getting an everyday viral infection is just enough to cause the decline of their melanocytes and melanocyte stem cells, leading to premature gray hair, Harris told UAB News.

Harris started working with the biotech startup when she was contacted by them last year. They were developing an experimental compound that would regrow hair, and they wanted to know if she would test it on her mice. Harris said she was skeptical, but she conducted a small trial.

It worked. Harris said when she tests gray-haired mice with the compound, she sees hair color come back.

Some gray hairs could be rejuvenated, the university said, through compounds to stimulate the cells. (Courtesy, UAB)

And we can take these same mice, pluck the hair and when new hairs grow out they retain the higher level of pigmentation, suggesting this is permanent, she said. This compound is reprogramming the stem cells, taking them to a younger state, allowing them to start up again.

Harris and Joseph Palmer, one of her doctoral students, are also studying a theory that the melanocyte stem cells spend most of their time in a dormant state, and that the cells can possibly be stimulated.

(Spanish doctors in a study) suggested that some melanocyte stem cells are retained in gray hairs, Harris said. We thought that once you go gray the stem cells are all lost theres no going back. But presumably they can be reactivated. That study means, according to Harris, there may be therapies to reactive the cells, and the compound shes working with alongside the startup could be a promising way forward, according to UAB.

We have an opportunity with this company to find out what are the potential ways we can fix a broken system, Harris said. Were always looking at whats broken and rarely do we get to go in the other direction, towards tissue rejuvenation. So this is exciting.

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UAB scientist studies aging through gray hair, says hair could be rejuvenated - AL.com