infocus #17 March 2010 Hair Follicles

Hair follicles have been found to have their own reservoir of stem cells. Passoli and her team ask the question, how do stem cells become mobilized from their niches to form tissues?

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.52

Our bodies are protected by a magnificent cover, the epidermis. Despite being only micrometers thick, it is a formidable seal of our body surface, excluding microbes and retaining body fluids. The epidermis can elaborate a diversity of protective appendages: hair follicles (HFs), nails, sebaceous and sweat glands in mammals. In order for the epidermis and its appendages to survive normal wear and tear as well as injuries, they must undergo a continuous renewal process. For this purpose, the skin counts a reservoir of stem cells.

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Author

Hilda Amalia Pasolli

Howard Hughes Medical Institute

As a member of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at the Rockefeller University, Hilda Amalia Pasolli uses her electron microscopy expertise to gain insights on how skin cells proliferate, differentiate and regenerate. She employs ultrastructural analysis to visualize normal and aberrant skin cell structures after key signalling molecules in the skin have been deleted or disrupted. The lab, directed by Elaine Fuchs, uses a broad repertoire of approaches to study how stem cells located within the skin give rise to the skin’s top layer, the epidermis and to skin appendages such as HFs and sebaceous glands. Hilda Amalia Pasolli received her Ph.D. in Chemical Sciences in 1993 for her thesis work at the Centre for Electron Microscopy at Cordoba National University in Argentina. She conducted postdoctoral research in the Department of Neurobiology at Heidelberg University in Germany from 1994 until 1998. She then returned to Cordoba as Assistant Professor and Researcher at the Centre for Electron Microscopy. She joined the Fuchs lab at Rockefeller as a Research Assistant Professor in 2002 and was promoted to Research Associate Professor in 2008. Hilda Amalia Pasolli was the recipient of the Diatome Award for her work on electron microscopy of skin in 2005 and 2009.