Italian researchers have succeeded in using hair to grow the right kind of skin for grafting onto serious burns and other wounds.
"Basically, you put the hair in an incubator and grow skin cells that produce a protein that endows the skin with protective properties," said Pisa University's Marco Romanelli.
"We have obtained a type of skin that is able to repair the kind of wounds that are hardest to treat".
"And there's no risk of us turning anyone bald - we only take about 100 hairs from each person, the number that falls out every day in any case".
Romanelli said the skin obtained from the hair was special because it contained an unusually tough version of both the dermis (deep skin) and epidermis (surface).
A biotech institute in San Marino is interested in developing the technique with stem cells to make it more widely applicable, Romanelli added.
Skin grafts are normally taken from another part of the body.
Demand is so overwhelming that scientists have been trying to develop lab-grown grafts.
Skin grafts are essential in the treatment of extensive burn areas, varicose ulcers and after the surgical removal of skin cancers.
