Recent Advances in Hair Cloning

Article by HairlossTalk.com

Article written exclusively for HairlossTalk and its users, Dr. Kevin McElwee provides this three-part review on the current state of hair cloning research, its history, and what you can expect to see in the coming years with this exciting new technology...

The hair follicles we are born with have to last us a lifetime. Like internal
organs, we cannot naturally generate new hair follicles in adult life. If hair
follicles are damaged or destroyed through disease or trauma, the area of affected
skin is permanently depleted of hair follicles. At least that is currently the
case, but in the same way that research is being conducted into the possibility
of organ regeneration to replace, for example, a diseased liver, scientists have
been looking at ways to regenerate hair follicles.

How Hair Cloning Works

In principle, it is possible to produce new hair follicles from certain
cells. At its simplest, a few healthy hair follicles can be excised from an individual
by biopsy. The follicles are then dissected to isolate a small ball of cells at
the base of each follicle called the dermal papilla. For the average full grown
scalp hair there are about 200-400 cells in each dermal papilla. That’s
not much, but these cells can be cultured in incubators to make several hundred
thousand cells within about 6 weeks or so. These cells can then be implanted into
bald skin where the dermal papilla cells induce new hair follicles to develop.
The process is not fully understood, but we do know that dermal papilla cells
send out chemical signals called cytokines that tell the skin to produce a new
hair follicle. A new hair follicle is made from epithelial cells, but the *development
and cycling* of the follicle is determined by dermal papilla cells. You must have
both dermal papilla cells and epithelial cells together to form a hair follicle.
Just one or the other cannot form a follicle on their own.

Re-triggering that Fetal Fun...

This process whereby dermal cells communicate with epithelial cells to produce
hair follicles occurs naturally during your fetal development. At this time, cells
destined to become dermal papilla cells, migrate through the skin dermis and start
to cluster together. The initial trigger that causes this to happen is unknown.
Each cell cluster is tells nearby epithelial cells to make a new hair follicle,
but after birth the number and distribution of dermal papilla cell structures
are all fixed in place. There is no new dermal papilla structure formation, so
there is no new hair follicle formation after birth. However, the above principle
shows that all the ingredients necessary to generate brand new follicles *are*
present in adult skin. The kicker is trying to figure out how to get these cells
to restart their communications and do what they did while you were an adorable
little fetus.

A topical Hair Cloning treatment?

It might be possible one day to cause new hair follicle formation by applying
skin with a chemical signal that triggers the resident dermal cells to return
to their embryogenic days, but such a treatment approach is not likely for a long
time. We know some of the chemical signals that might be involved, but certainly
not all of them. Products such as Lef1 or beta Catenin may be involved, but there
must be many more factors involved to induce hair follicle development that we
do not know about. Before a chemical treatment can be developed to induce new
hair follicle formation, we need to know a lot more about the mechanism of natural
hair follicle development.

(Continued on next page...)

© HairlossTalk.com - All Rights Reserved.
The content found here is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.
For permission to duplicate any content, please Contact Us.
Make sure you're Subscribed to the Newsletter! We never share your info.