Could hair cloning be the ultimate cure for baldness? Hair cloning, aka hair multiplication, holds the promise of unlimited hair. In principle, even someone who is completely bald could restore a full head of hair via injections of regenerative hair follicle stem cells. But, hair loss has been a persistently tough nut to crack and there is no shortage of snake oil that over-promises and under-delivers. February 25,2022 • BY: DELIA VON NEUSCHATZ
Not so when it comes to hair cloning, according to leading UK hair transplant surgeon, Dr. Bessam Farjo who posits that the procedure could be available to patients as early as the end of 2022/beginning of 2023.
Board Certified hair transplant surgeon, Dr. Sara Wasserbauer, is also bullish on the technology, placing its availability a bit further into the future – more like 2025/2026, barring any further Covid-related delays.
But, not so fast cautions world-renowned expert in hair disorders, Dr. Antonella Tosti. When it comes to stem cells, it’s important to distinguish between hair rejuvenation and hair restoration, with the latter being at least a decade away. In the meantime, there are multiple ways of optimizing hair health.
So, what is hair cloning and how does it work? A single, hardy hair strand is produced by thousands of stem cells called dermal papillae, located at the base, i.e. in the bulb, of each hair follicle. We are born with all the hair follicles we’ll ever have – around 100,000. But their life spans are limited. Aging, genetics, testosterone, cancer, even Covid-19 can kill the stem cells that make the hair. As dermal papillae disappear over time, follicles “miniaturize” and become dormant. Once a hair follicle goes dormant, it cannot be restored.
Enter hair cloning. What hair cloning refers to is the replication in the lab of the dermal papillae, explains Dr. Farjo. “What you do is isolate these cells from someone’s hair and then you culture them in a particular medium that allows for these hairs to multiply into thousands.”Hair cloning is not a new concept. In the past, attempts have been made to simply grow these cells in the lab and then inject them back into the head of the person from whom the cells originated. These efforts, however, have failed over the last 20 years or so.
What gives Dr. Farjo cause for optimism is that the last few years have seen a resurgence of research in this field. A number of companies worldwide, including HairClone, with which both Drs. Farjo and Wasserbauer are affiliated, have picked up the pace of research because hair biology has advanced considerably.
“We now have new ways of culturing these cells in the lab that improve their chance of stimulating hair growth,” says Dr. Farjo.
Here’s where the all-important distinction between hair rejuvenation and hair regeneration comes in. There’s a difference between cloning the follicle itself, i.e. making a brand new follicle that regenerates its own hair, explains Dr. Wasserbauer. That is probably 10 or 20 years away. What is imminent is the cloning of dermal papillae cells, which serves to thicken existing thinning hair.
So, rather than attempt to make a hair grow from nothing in completely bald skin, these cells are introduced into hairs that are on their way out. In this way, the hair thinning is reversed. “Instead of looking like a thinning, dying hair, it could be revived to a mature, good quality hair,” explains Dr. Farjo.
The way it works is this: up to 100 hair follicles are removed from the back of the patient’s head in a similar manner to a hair transplant – with a follicular unit extraction or FUE. Those hairs then get cryo-preserved in a tissue bank. This stops the aging process of the hair. When the time comes to introduce treatment to the patient, 5 or 6 of those follicles are thawed and the basic cells in the root are isolated. Those cells are then cultured in a lab and multiplied. The multiplied cells are then injected into the areas of the patient’s head where the hairs are thinning.Hair cloning procedure. Illustration: SureHair International
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