At the dawn of hair research - testing the limits of hair follicle regeneration.

In the late 1960s, tissue recombination studies by Roy Oliver on the model of rat vibrissae provided invaluable information about the morphogenetic properties of hair follicles. Now more than ever, the field is hopeful that a clinically reproducible procedure for cell-based hair regeneration is achievable. Highly inductive mesenchymal cells are thought to be the key ingredient necessary to achieve robust hair regeneration, and efforts are underway to develop protocols to improve the naturally low inductive properties of human dermal papilla cells. In this respect, the original studies by Oliver provide essential rodent research benchmarks, which current-day human studies should aim to reach.