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Hair Cloning Nears Reality as
Baldness Cure
Hair Multiplication Puts New Face
on Hair Restoration
WebMD Medical News
Nov. 4, 2004 -- Balding men and women take note. Hair cloning -- the
next hair restoration remedy -- is on the way.
OK, it's not exactly cloning, although that's what it's come to be
called. Researchers working to perfect the new technique prefer the term
"hair multiplication."
And no, it's not ready for prime time. Not yet, says Ken Washenik,
MD, PhD. Washenik is medical director for Bosley, the giant hair
restoration company that's one of several firms racing to bring hair
multiplication to market. He's also clinical assistant professor of
dermatology at New York University Medical Center.
"There is no doubt it will be a tremendous breakthrough," Washenik
tells WebMD. "It is the thing people have been waiting for. There have
been so many remedies for hair loss that didn't pan out. This is one
that really looks like it is going to happen -- and happen in the next
few years."
It's not just hype, says hair researcher George Cotsarelis, professor
of dermatology and director of the hair and scalp clinic, at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.
Cotsarelis consults for Bosley, but is not involved in the company's
research program.
"It is hard to predict whether they will be successful, but there is
good evidence that will happen," Cotsarelis tells WebMD. "It is not
quackery -- they are not charlatans. It is based on real scientific
knowledge. But there are a lot of hurdles still to overcome."
The promise of early research often evaporates in the harsh light of
clinical testing. Yet Washenik predicts that hair multiplication will be
available for hair restoration in three or four years.
Hair Restoration Today and Tomorrow
The hair follicle is a tiny organ with an odd power: It contains stem
cells that can regenerate it.
At the base of the follicle is the hair bulb, where wildly growing
matrix cells become hair. A little farther up the follicle is the
mysterious feature called the bulge. That's where follicle stem cells
live.
When they get the right set of chemical signals, these self-renewing
cells divide. They don't divide like normal cells, in which both halves
become new cells that keep splitting and developing. Only one half of
the follicle stem cell does that. The other half becomes a new stem
cell, and stays put for future regeneration.
| The Holy Grail of
hair restoration would be to figure out exactly how these
chemical signals work. A future drug might contain all the
signals needed to grow hair in bald areas of the head. But the
complexity of the body's chemical language means such a drug is
decades from reality, Washenik says. But it's already possible
to seed bald areas of the head by transplanting follicle from
areas where there's still plenty of hair. This works pretty well
for men, who generally don't lose the hair on the back of the
head. For women, however, age-related hair loss often affects
the back of the head. That's why hair transplants tend to be
much less successful for women.
And there are only so many hair follicles. Even successful
hair transplants don't grow as rich a crop of hair as most
people would like.
Hair Cloning: What It Is -- and Isn't
The basic idea behind hair cloning is to harvest healthy
follicle stem cells. But instead of transplanting them right
away, researchers have learned how to make the stem cells or
seeds multiply.
It's not cloning, which uses different techniques. New
follicle stem cells are grown in laboratory cultures. Then they
are attached to tiny skin-cell scaffolds and implanted into bald
areas of the scalp.
"The idea is to take these cells from the bulb of the hair,
grow them in culture, and come back with an increased number of
hair seeds you could inject into the scalp," Washenik says. "You
start with a small number of hairs and come back with a larger
number of hair seeds, and inject them into one area, and just
create brand-new hair follicles."
Moreover, researchers have discovered that some follicle
cells do more than regenerate. They give off chemical signals.
Nearby follicle cells -- which have shrunk during the aging
process -- respond to these signals by regenerating and once
again making healthy hair. It works in lab mice. And, Washenik
says, it works in human skin cultures, too.
"So this three-to-four-years-away number is not fantasy,"
Washenik says. "It is biotechnology research, and
nature can always step in the way and slow things down. But the
concept of tissue-engineered hair growth to create a new hair
organ looks very real." |
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