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Do
you accept personal visitors at your place of work?
No! Some individuals have asked if they can visit me and/or the
laboratory, but I feel I am unable to meet people personally. While
this may seem harsh, the laboratory building where I work has a
permanent, self-imposed quarantine status. We deal with some pretty
nasty skin diseases during the course of our research and some are
infectious. Laboratory quarantine makes it difficult to accept visitors.
Also, I hope you will agree that my priority should be my research
and that visitors could disrupt and slow down my work. Exceptions
may be made for professional scientists/dermatologists...... and
anyone willing to pay lots of money to me or for my research!
Why
are you wasting your time on hair research?
People sometimes ask why I am not involved in research on "serious"
diseases, something that will save people's lives. True, hair loss
is not a life threatening condition, but it is soul destroying.
If you were to read the Emails I receive, especially those from
teenage girls with alopecia areata, you would realize that hair
loss can be an extremely emotionally damaging life event. People
with hair loss describe it as a physical and emotional scar limiting
their quality of life. There are many stories of men and women with
alopecia who curtail their social lives and who are embarrassed
in public or even with their closest friends. Hair loss in children
can take a particularly heavy toll with verbal and physical harassment
from other children. Several dermatologists have noted suicidal
tendencies in some individuals with hair loss. For as long as our
society places more emphasis on how we look rather than who we are
there will be a need for hair research and development of treatments.
Hair biology is not just about curing alopecia. It also has importance
in understanding regeneration properties. If we are injured and
loose an arm we are unable to regenerate a new one. A growing area
of research interest focuses on how we might artificially promote
such healing powers. Hair follicles may provide us with important
clues. Hair follicles are complex "organs" that go through
a regular cycle. This cycle requires a regression and a regeneration
stage that involves adult stem cell activity. Following the hair
cycle and understanding cell communication and genetic switching
involved in the hair cycle may give us important information to
understand how to encourage regenerative healing.
Understanding the interactions involved in a complex structure
such as the hair follicle could provide us with important information
to use in understanding other diseases and not just those limited
to the skin. Ease of access to hair follicles compared to internal
organs make them ready subjects for study. Research could provide
information that may contribute to understanding such conditions
as autoimmune disease and even certain types of cancer. For example,
basal cell carcinomas are the most common form of skin cancer and
the cells such carcinomas develop from are believed to be derived
from the hair follicle in about one third of all cases. Alopecia
areata is an autoimmune disease of hair follicles. If we understand
alopecia areata through research, the results may be applied to
other life threatening forms of autoimmune disease. Thus hair research
has the potential to provide significant information for use in
many different fields of science and medicine.
Do
you make lots of money in hair research?
No! Do you think I would be spending so much time on this web
site if I was? Some clinical dermatologists are very successful
and make a very good living from their practices. However, the majority
of individuals in hair research are not particularly well paid.
It is the drug companies that stand to make the fortunes rather
than individuals.
What
is the intention of your web site?
In the spirit of education, this web site is intended to provide
basic, straight forward information about hair and alopecia. The
intention is to explain common questions you may have in addition
to the information provided by your dermatologist. This web site
should not be seen in any way as a replacement for advice obtained
from a professional dermatologist. Many dermatology clinics are
busy places where the dermatologist has only limited time to spend
with each patient. He/she may not have enough time to answer all
your questions, or you may think of other questions to ask after
the consultation is over. Web sites like this one hopefully fill
the information gap.
What
are you doing for your hair loss?
Although I have progressed to the early stages of androgenetic
alopecia over the last few years I still have enough hair for the
casual observer not to notice. At least that is what I keep telling
myself! Since moving to a laboratory attached to a clinical dermatology
department in mid 1999 I have been a volunteer in drug trials. These
trials are primarily to test new methods of analyzing hair regrowth
rather than the actual drugs themselves. These experiments will
hopefully make future drug testing faster and easier.
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