PARIS (AFP) – Researchers have found the genetic basis of two distinct forms of inherited hair loss, opening a broad path to treatments for thinning locks, according to a pair of studies released Sunday. Geneticist Regina Betz of the University of Bonn and her colleagues hunted down a gene — P2RY5 — that causes a rare, inherited form of hair loss called Hypotrichosis simplex. Columbia University lead a team that found another mutation of the same gene that results in "woolly hair" — sparse, dry and tightly curled hair over the entire scalp. Pakistan , the researchers determined that the mutation is expressed in the inner root sheath of hair follicles, which anchor and shape individual hairs. read more

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