Hair Restoration Blog

There is a newly published article where the authors wrote about reconstituting skin from stem cells. This process, explained in the article, requires hair stem cells which are capable of making new skin, including hair, and other skin appendages.

The authors discuss that they have developed a simplified procedure that could modulate, or adjust, the hair formation ability of candidate stem cells. Based on their observations, the formed hair follicles could cycle and regenerate, and the reconstituted skin can heal after injury. These samples were evaluated one year after skin transplant, and they were in good condition.

Hair stem cell is a very hot topic in regenerative medicine and scientists hope they can make other tissues and organs from pluripotential cells that can develop into different cell lineages. We at US Hair Restoration have also recently published an article (Towards expansion of human hair follicle stem cells in vitro) that sheds light on another angle of hair stem cell research and can pave the way for future hair multiplication (also known as hair cloning). Hair multiplication has  great potential of being a medical treatment for hair loss in the future.

More information on this research can be found in the newly published article  in the Tissue Engineering: Part C, Methods on hair multiplication through multiplication of hair stem cells. The articles is titled “A simplified procedure to reconstitute hair-producing skin” by Lee, et al. from Division of Plastic Surgery, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.

A new interesting article on hair multiplication, published article on Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, was just released last week.  As part of my personal mission to educate my patients and other hair loss sufferers who visit our website, I post the newest information available on hair loss and hair restoration here.

This article is the result of a recent study done by Aor et al in the Department of Plastic Surgery based at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine in Japan.  The authors evaluated the interaction between the Dermal Papilla Cells (DPCs) and other cells found in skin such as epithelial cells (the outer cellular layer of the skin) on animal models.

The investigators reviewed prior unsuccessful experiments with DPCs in humans and focused on two main challenges:

1.       Functional limitations of expanded DPCs obtained from adult hair follicles

2.       Lack of a clinically applicable method for transplanting DPCs to the skin

The investigators used five clinically applicable transplantation procedures on rat model.  They named the procedures Pinhole, Laser, Slit, Non-vascularized sandwich (NVS) and Hemi-vascularized sandwich (HVS) methods.  They used biomarkers to label rat dermal papilla tissue before transplanting it into rat skin.  They evaluated the regeneration hair follicles microscopically.  The noted growth through different methods, however, has presented numerous problems (i.e.- cystic or inverted appearance following transplantation). They found the HVS method to be more successful due to its higher presented numbers of regenerated hair as well as its increased numbers of mature and regular hair than those observed employing the other methods.

They found that hair growth was detected after expanded adult-derived DPC transplantation using the HVS method. The authors concluded that direct contact of epithelial and dermal components, as well as better vascularization and blood supply of the recipient skin are important factors in producing more successful results from transplanted multiplied hair into the skin.

This study is not the first experience in which hair multiplication research has revealed difficulty in sole transplantation of hair stem cells. This study only confirmed the phenomenon of hair growth and complexity of hair cycling which is complex and involves many different cell lineage interactions.  I am positive that these efforts of the scientists involved in hair multiplication will eventually pay off and that at some point we will be able to restore hair for hair loss sufferers without the current limitations of available donor hair.

Q:

Hello this is a hot topic on hairsite.com . And I see from your website that you commented on it. I have been around the internet sites since 2000. And I know one rule of thumb if something works and is a consistent viable technique past patients that had the procedure would be coming on and talking about and be willing to show their results even in person.

It  was like that when FUE was first introduced to the internet the ht community did not think it was a viable solution to hair loss! Well I know some different since I had the procedure done in 2003 that was after going to seminars interviwing past patients and seeing them live in person. And look how many clinics offer it today So my question to you is why has this not happened with Dr. Ghos new technique being talked about in 2010???

I know back in 2003 he did not have anything viable even know there was much talk then. Just reporting my experinces and wanting your opinion since it is posted on your website.

http://ushairrestoration.com/follicular-stemcell-transplantation.php

Thanks,

A:

Over the last decade, hair stem cell research has improved and our understanding of the growth, cycling and death of hair follicles has definitely increased more noticeably in the last few years.  There are several centers in the world that actively pursue hair stem cell research for different purposes including producing new hair follicles, nervous system cells and so on. The fact is  that despite of all the improvements we have had in last few years, we still do not have a perfect model for hair multiplication through culturing hair stem cells in vitro.

The previously leading institute for hair stem cell research was Intercytex, but they ended their efforts last year due to some difficulties which were not quite disclosed to public. We have been and still are involved in several clinical and laboratory studies in regards to hair stem cells and hair multiplications through the splitting of hair follicles.

In one study that we performed in US Hair Restoration, we divided the hair follicles vertically by micro-dissection techniques and implanted the two halves into normal skin.  We have not noticed significant growth out of any of these pieces.  Several other studies were done with the focus on splitting hair follicles horizontally, which is easier to perform with mixed result.  We at US Hair Restoration are collaborating in hair stem cell research with the Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles with emphasis on culturing one of the two different type of follicular stem cells.  The goal is to use the newly produced stem cells to grow new hair in vitro or in vivo.  The speed of growing and multiplication of follicular stem cells has been extremely slow which has been one of the problems we faced while using hair stem cell culture as one alternative method for medical hair restoration.

Dr. Gho’s presentation claimed that with monitoring and improving the techniques of the preservation’s medium, instruments and handling of the grafts, we might be able to improve the viability of the transplanted hair follicles. While this concept is interesting, in order to prove the validity of this claim we will need more evidence based documentation. They came up with a special method that claimed to preserve the hair follicles without affecting the characteristics of the hairs in the donor area, and thus presumed it was possible to get more viable hair from the limited permanent hair follicles of each person. They called this technique “Hair Stem cell Transplantation®” and announced that it may represent the very first patient friendly method to multiply hair follicles while still preserving the donor area.

I would like to believe claims of this kind, because I more than anyone understand the challenge of treating patients who do not have the adequate number of donor hairs for their ideal hair restoration.  However, I would rather wait to see more significant scientific proofs to claims of this kind before I consider them as viable options for the treatment of patterned hair loss.

Q:

Is Hair cloning or multiplication being done anywhere yet?

A:

Hair cloning or multiplication has been in the news in the last few years. I prefer to use the term hair multiplication, rather than cloning because cloning refers to production of genetically identical organisms. Dolly the most celebrated sheep was the product of first cloning. When it comes to hair, we do not really clone the cells, but we culture them and try to get a whole organism from cultured cells. Unfortunately the process of culturing hair follicle cells has not been as simple as some other tissues in human body. The complexity of hair physiology is due to participation of many different stem cells in development of each hair follicle. In this process, we do not multiply genetic material or DNA of cells.

Hair cloning news

Hair multiplication if become a reality could bring about a great opportunity for bald people with violated donor scalp who cannot be good candidates for hair transplantation with current techniques. Despite our enthusiasm about hair multiplication, hair cloning news in last few years has not been filled with many success stories.

Hair cloning 2007

Year 2006 intercytex company announced that they are going to start phase 3 of hair multiplication study soon. Hair cloning has been in the news and many people are eagerly following that news to see when and how they can get a full head of hair using hair cloning techniques. Unfortunately, cloning hair has not been going that well and in last few years we only had limited research results on hair multiplication in animal models and in human. Here is the question that people usually ask me: Is hair cloning being done anywhere yet? And my answer usually is: Not except on experimental levels. Several investigations are in process on hair multiplication field and hair stem cell research.

Hair cloning 2008

Hair multiplication or as people call it hair cloning is a method that allows us to culture hair follicles and multiply it so we can increase the final number of hairs. So far, we know that it is doable on animals, and there are some reports of its feasibility on human volunteers. Safety has been one of the biggest questions on any research involved with stem cells. Stimulating growth of stem cells has always raised the flag for possible tumor formation. In year 2008, we should witness some results of the phase 3 studies on the procedure. During this year or in next few years, we should have a better understanding of the effectiveness and safety of hair multiplication. I know many of my patients are following hair cloning news carefully. Unfortunately, hair multiplication news has not been very fruitful in last year, but the process is complex and one way or another it will become clear in next few years that we can or cannot use hair multiplication methods in hair restoration surgeries.