About Elaine Fuchs

Elaine Fuchs is working out the molecular mechanisms that allow multipotent stem cells to continually make and repair the skin, hair follicles and other structures as well as how these processes go awry in cancer. She is an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and head of the Laboratory of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at Rockefeller University in New York City.

Read two interviews with the featured expert

• Elaine Fuchs: secrets of skin renewal

• Elaine Fuchs: more secrets of skin renewal

Featured expert's recommendations

• Epidermal homeostasis: a balancing act of stem cells in the skin This review describes resident stem cell pools within the epidermis and the mechanisms that orchestrate growth and repair. Blanpain, C. & Fuchs, E. Nature Rev. Mol. Cell Biol. 10, 207-217 (2009).

• Epithelial stem cells: turning over new leaves
  This review describes how common signalling pathways appear to control epithelial stem cell maintenance, activation, lineage determination and differentiation even within various skin structures.
  Blanpain, C., Horsley, V. & Fuchs, E. Cell 128, 445-458 (2007).

• Mechanisms regulating epithelial stratification
  This review summarizes the molecular mechanisms that regulate epidermal morphogenesis.
  Koster, M. I. & Roop, D. R. Annu. Rev. Cell Dev. Biol. 23, 93-113 (2007).

• Morphogenesis and renewal of hair follicles from adult multipotent stem cells
  This paper is the first to suggest that the bulge region within the skin contains multipotent epidermal stem cells.
  Oshima, H., Rochat, A., Kedzia, C., Kobayashi, K. & Barrandon, Y. Cell 104, 233-245 (2001).

• Separation of human epidermal stem cells from transit amplifying cells on the basis of differences in integrin function and expression
  These experiments were the first to isolate and functionally characterize the stem cells and transit amplifying cells of the human skin epidermis.
  Jones, P. H. & Watt, F. M. Cell 73, 713-724 (1993).

• De novo hair follicle morphogenesis and hair tumors in mice expressing a truncated -catenin in skin
  This study identifies the key role of Wnt signalling in hair follicle specification and in inducing tumours derived from hair follicles.
  Gat, U., DasGupta, R., Degenstein, L. & Fuchs, E. Cell 95, 605-614 (1998).

• Asymmetric cell divisions promote stratification and differentiation of mammalian skin
  This research describes how temporal regulation of spindle pole orientation controls epidermal stratification during embryonic development.
  Lechler, T. & Fuchs, E. Nature 437, 275-280 (2005).