The key, he and colleagues report in the Feb. 19 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, might be a protein called VEGF now used experimentally to help people grow their own heart bypasses. VEGF, or vascular endothelial growth factor, helps the body grow blood vessels. It can help heart disease patients and is one of the proteins blocked in certain experimental anti-cancer therapies aimed at starving out tumors. The researchers are now working on a way to get VEGF into the scalp in a cream or ointment. Applying it to humans will be a big challenge.
Cytokines are a signalling mechanisms that cells use to communicate with each other.
VEGF was originally identified in tumor biology. Tumors grow very large very rapidly and to do this they need a lot of nutrients. To ensure a good supply, tumor cells may produce VEGF to induce blood vessels in surrounding healthy tissue to grow into the tumor. VEGF production and increased angiogenesis can also bee seen in wound healing and in some diseases such as psoriasis. However, VEGF is also produced by normal, healthy cells in various organs to maintain a good blood supply.