Thicker Hair, Bigger Penis produced by Researchers

Article by HairlossTalk.com

Photos Taken from the Study
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Aside from providing a fascinating look at how the unexpected plays out in science, this transgenic mouse will have more concrete applications, says Chuong. "In the era of tissue engineering," he and his colleagues write in their paper, "one may want to modulate the number, size or the differentiation status of some ectodermal organs in humans or animals for various medical, agricultural and industrial reasons. The newly made transgenic mouse can be a useful animal model and tissue source for these analyses and evaluations."

Maksim Plikus, Wen Pin Wang, Jian Liu, Xia Wang, Ting-Xin Jiang, and Cheng-Ming Chuong, "Morpho-Regulation of Ectodermal Organs: Integument Pathology and Phenotypic Variations in K14-Noggin Engineered Mice through Modulation of Bone Morphogenic Protein Pathway." American Journal of Pathology, 2004 164: 1099-1114.

HLT

Editor's Note: As you can see in the comments below, one of our users rightfully asked "has april fools come early this year or is this for real". Its for real. Keep in mind, tinkering with genes can do a lot of amazing things. The safety factor is key however. Another good lesson for those of us prone to jumping bandwagon hair loss treatments. Just because dumping solvents on your head may make hair grow, doesn't mean its safe, or smart, or something that can be responsibly provided to the public. This is just research that found something interesting and new. As mentioned above, the safety factor is still a major obstacle.

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HairlossTalk spoke with Maksim Plikus, owner of www.clonemyhair.com, and participant in this study, about the photos above.

HairlossTalk: I assume WT is the unaffected mouse and K14N is the genetically altered one?

Maksim Plikus: Yes, that is correct.

HairlossTalk: What are we seeing in the comparison photos of the entire mice, laying side by side? The one on the right looks like hell compared to the one on the left.

Maksim Plikus: The one on the right is actually the mutant mouse. The thing is that the Noggin protein that we altered in this mouse caused a lot of changes. Many of them are bad. Affected mice actually look smaller and weaker compared to the normal. However, at the same time, changes in some parts of the body are beneficial. Such as increase in the hair density and the penis size. The take home message is like this: we can learn from this mouse what kind of changes to expect from mis-expression of Noggin, and apply Noggin only to the parts of the body where it causes beneficial changes (penis, scalp hair), not all over.

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