Ebling Lecture - Generating new hair follicles in adult epidermis.
Fiona Watt. Keratinocyte Laboratory, London Research Institute, Lincoln’s Inn Fields Laboratories, London, UK.

Adult mammalian epidermis is maintained by stem cells, which self-renew and produce progeny that differentiate along the hair follicle, sebaceous gland and interfollicular epidermal lineages. Two important regulators are Myc and l3-catenin. Myc activation causes stem cell depletion and differentiation into interfollicular epidermis and sebaceous gland. l3-catenin controls lineage choice in a dosedependent fashion and acts, at least in part, by upregulating Hedgehog and Notch signalling. By exploiting Tamoxifen-inducible epidermal transgenes my lab is investigating the consequences of modulating the strength and duration of individual signals, and how different signalling pathways intersect. We are examining the mechanisms by which Myc exerts different effects on stem cells and differentiated cells, and examining whether stem cells can be generated from committed progenitors. The epidermis is an experimentally tractable tissue that provides a paradigm for understanding how stem cell number and lineage selection are controlled in other adult tissues.