Zebrafish melanocytes cause diseases similar to those in people when they don’t work properly. Studying how they regenerate after injury could lead to new treatments for hair color loss and vitiligo.
Professor Fabian V. Filipp lectures on the biology of malignant melanoma and pigmentation disease. The color of skin is due to the presence of a pigment called melanin, which can absorb cancer-causing sunlight.
Photo by Systems Biology and Cancer Metabolism Laboratory, Fabian V. Filipp. Used with permission. CC BY-SA.
An autoimmune disease called vitiligo causes white spots to appear on the body, in some cases completely erasing an individual’s pigmentation. But a new therapy is on the horizon.