Don't want to wear a toupee no more like Christian Bale's character from American Hustle? The cure for baldness may be here exactly just yet, but scientists have just announced a potentially revolutionary discovery. They turned mature skin cells into stem cells that develop into hair follicles. Say goodbye to Rogaine?

The discovery, published this week in Nature Communications, marks the first time scientists have transformed adult cells into the specific type of stem cell that develops into hair follicles. They added genes that turned the cells into pluripotent stem cells, that are capable of differentiating into any cell type in the body. Genetic manipulation enable them to be turned into epithelial stem cells, a specific type found in developed hair follicles.

That sounds great, but you won't be seeing this technique being offered commercially anytime soon. Human hair loss affects two types of cells - epithelial cells and dermal papillae cells, the latter of which the scientists haven't been able to regenerate.

It is nonetheless a groundbreaking discovery and the ability to create new hair follicles is really promising.

[UPenn via PopSci]