June 4, 2011 Researchers in the Keck School of Medicine of the
University of Southern California (USC), together with
scientists in Beijing, China, have discovered a chromosomal
mutation responsible for a very rare condition in which people
grow excess hair all over their bodies. Investigators hope the
finding ultimately will lead to new treatments for this and less
severe forms of excessive hair growth as well as baldness. The
study appears online June 2, 2011 in the American Journal of
Human Genetics. Pragna Patel, professor in the Keck School, the
USC Institute for Genetic Medicine, and the Herman Ostrow School
of Dentistry of USC, is a co-investigator of the study, and
Sunju Choi, a research associate in Patel's lab, is a co-first
author. The principal investigator is Xue Zhang, professor and
chair of medical genetics at the Peking Union Medical College.
The initial discovery of the mutation came from Zhang's lab,
which examined the condition, known as CGH, in a Chinese family.
Researchers there worked wi