Haarstamcellen en hun mogelijke toepassingen

The general aim of this thesis is:
To demonstrate that the population of follicular stem cells consists of pluripotent, multipotent, oligopotent and unipotent stem cells and that these stem cells may be stimulated to generate fully differentiated hairs. Therefore it would not be necessary to transplant the whole hair follicle to regenerate new hairs, but only (a part of) the follicular stem cells. In the investigations described in this thesis, we investigate the characteristics of different follicular stem cells and their potential applications.

The main objectives of this thesis were:
A. To identify and determine the localization of the follicular stem cells in whole hair follicles, plucked hairs and hair follicular cell culture.
B. To study the viability of hair transplantation grafts and hair follicular units.
C. To explore the hair growth potential of partial follicular units containing follicular stem cells and their clinical applications and to evaluate the results.
D. To study hair follicular stem cells and to explore their potential future applications in regenerative medicine.