Therapeutic strategies for treating hair loss

Here, we sketch why significant progress in the as yet very unsatisfactory pharmacological management of hair loss demands more rational strategies for ‘hair drug’ development, which effectively target defined key events in hair follicle cycling and transformation. Chiefly, drugs need to be identified that serve as inhibitors of catagen, exogen and/or the terminal-to-vellus transformation, or that induce anagen. For this, identification of the relevant molecular controls of human hair follicle cycling is an essential prerequisite.

Section editor:Mike P. Philpott – Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London, UK