In this interesting and detailed podcast, Hasan Erbil Abaci, Assistant Professor at Columbia University Medical Center, discusses exciting new work in tissue engineering as it relates to hair follicles.

Abaci is an experienced scientific researcher and has published extensively on a multitude of scientific areas, such as tissue engineering, endothelial cells, and human-on-a-chip design.

Abaci talks skin, which as he states is quite the complex organ composed of various components. Abaci is curious about how hair follicles are connected, and his research delves deep into these complex organs and how hair follicles function and communicate with other tissues.

The tissue engineering expert provides a thorough overview of how cells within the complex skin system signal, detailing how tissues regenerate. Abaci informs us about the growth cycle, and how this involved process demands that new blood vessels provide a specialized supply of blood to support the growth.

Abaci explains their work with specific samples in the lab, and how their use of 3D printed molds with hair follicle extensions is opening up new opportunities for study and application of their work. Abaci explains the chemical and physical signaling that goes on in our bodies, which is essential for tissue communication and life. And he expounds upon the importance of understanding how these processes work, and what secrets they may reveal in regards to recreating signals in vitro, to efficiently grow hair follicles—in vitro.

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