Dr. Antonio Alvi Armani

The Future of Hair Transplants

Hair transplants, and you, will soon be able to benefit from such scientific, medical advancements as cloning, gene therapy and donor hair research.  Such advancements aim to use what we already know about the structure of hair and use it to further the field of hair transplantation.

Hair transplants are being researched and developed that involve two current methods of cloning.  The first method is called in-vivo cloning.  It involves cutting the hair follicle at different levels to produce more than one follicle.  By cutting the follicle midway at the stem cell level, two follicles can be reproduced from one.  The new growing hair is thinner in diameter than the normal hair follicle.  The cutting must be made very accurately at a very specific level, transversely, to produce very specific stem cells.

The other cloning method being researched is called in-vitro cloning.  In this method the stem cells from the hair follicle are taken and grown in a Petri dish.  In this way, new duplicate cells are cloned.  Later, these new cells can be inserted back into the scalp instead of follicles with hair.  It is believed that hair may be able to grow from the cells themselves.  The perfection of this technique of cloning would mean that even the man or woman with very few hairs could have thousands of cells replicated in a Petri dish.  From a single hair, or just a few, thousands of hair cells can be grown in a lab that can later be injected into the scalp to grow hair.

Another method to restore lost hair that is likely to emerge in the near future is gene therapy.  Gene therapy promises the potential to grow new hair follicles, as opposed to just stimulating dormant follicles to grow hair again.

The idea behind gene therapy is to correct an inherited or acquired condition that prevents hair growth by introducing a DNA sequence (a genetic chemical) into the balding scalp.  The introduced DNA sequence itself does not correct the problem causing balding, but it creates a sequence of chemical transactions that enter into the patient’s cells.  The cells then start producing the proteins necessary to give the skin the ability to produce new hair follicle cells.

A third advancement involves the concept of donor hair therapy.  Usually, hair transplantation occurs in the same individual, from one part of the body to another.  This is referred to as auto-transplantation.  However, allo-transplantation of hair occurs when hair is transplanted from one individual to another.  Traditionally, allo-transplantation has not been an option because hair is considered strongly antigenic; this means that the scalp of the individual receiving the transplant will likely reject the hair.  Recently, however, advancements have been made in follicle cell transplants in incompatible hosts that give hope for allogenic hair transplants.  Research and tests done with allogenic hair transplants have revealed what obstacles prevent allo-transplantation from working.  And further work is being done to overcome those obstacles in order to advance the way we understand and perform hair transplants.