Hair Restoration Blog

“Formation of Hair Structures Suitable for Implantation” is the title of a newly published article from Intercytex. Hair multiplication, also known as hair cloning, has been discussed in our Hair Restoration Blog in many of our past posts and has been the subject of many studies in the past. Intercytex is one of the companies that have been reporting some progress in different levels of the study and have reported that they have finished phase II and are starting phase III of this study.

Their studies have shown that hair multiplication by hair culturing has been successful in animals and it is now being studied on humans. The following article tries to elucidate the process of hair multiplication on laboratory animals that have already been released.

The aim of the study was “to develop a construct through which implanted follicular cells will efficiently cause hair regeneration for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia.” They used follicular dermal and epidermal cells isolated from embryonic mouse skin which were formed into aggregates.

The aggregates were incubated in lab in culture for five to seven days and then implanted inside the skin into athymic mice, which does not have the capability of rejecting foreign tissue. They observed that during culturing, mixed cell aggregates developed into hair-like structures, termed “proto-hairs.” Proto-hairs contained structures that resembled normal hair components, such as dermal papillae, hair matrix and rudimentary hair shafts.

When implanted into mouse skin, they developed further into mature hair follicles capable of prolonged growth. The authors concluded that mixed aggregates of murine follicular cells have the ability to develop while in culture into proto-hairs that retain the ability to fully develop into hair follicles after implantation.

Proto-hairs from human hair stem cells could provide a convenient and practical means by which follicular cells could be implanted for efficient hair regeneration to treat hair loss. Although the study does not add to what we knew before, it elucidates the process of work for the other scientists who follow on the progress of hair multiplication (cloning) research.

We at US Hair Restoration California offices follow the progress of hair multiplication studies closely.  We are also involved in some hair multiplication studies and the results will be released when completed.

Q:

I have had alopecia areata since I was 3 years of age and now I’m 33. I have done as much research as I can to find the causes of this hair loss and there has not been any accurate information of the cause. But my question would be if you are cloning the hair and a patient has alopecia how successful will the procedure be if the hair growth from the patient is unhealthy in the first place?

This procedure is a billion to trillion dollar industry but the research has to be done extensively due to unknown side effects. Please keep posting more information as you go forward. There are many people waiting impatiently.

A:

Alopecia areata is one of those conditions that hair transplant, either from regular methods or through cloning, cannot help much. We have discussed the treatment options for alopecia areata on our website.  Alopecia areata is an autoimmune condition in which the immune system reacts against the hair follicles and destroys them.

If we were to transplant hair to an area with active hair loss due to alopecia areata, the chance of you losing the transplanted hair is very high due to the same mechanism in which native hair has been lost. We do not have much information on cloned hair, but the same phenomenon is likely to happen after transplanting cloned or multiplied hair.

Intercytex has recently released some information on its hair multiplication experiments in a new article in the Journal of experimental dermatology. The title is “A graft model for hair development” and the article discusses what is done so far for hair multiplication experimentally. Intercytex has been involved with hair stem cell, hair culturing and hair multiplication, which is also known as hair cloning.

In this article follicular cell implantation (FCI) is discussed as an experimental cell therapy for the treatment of hair loss that uses cultured hair follicle cells to induce new hair formation. The process of culturing hair cells is based on the demonstration that adult dermal papilla cells (DPC) retain the hair inductive potential that they acquired during hair morphogenesis before birth. To obtain FCI, the investigators isolated hair inductive cells from scalp biopsies and then propagated them in culture media in order to provide adequate cells to generate several new follicles from a few hair follicles.

Following expansion of cells in culture, they implanted those cells into the scalp where they induce the formation of new follicles below the level of skin. They describe a consistent, reliable method in which they can test hair induction. Since the process relies on the ability to retain the potential for hair induction during the expansion of DPC in culture.

They go over a simple graft model that supports hair morphogenesis. In this experiment, they combine dermal cells with embryonic mouse epidermis that provides the keratinocyte (one of the skin cells) component of induced follicles. The grafts are placed under a protective skin flap in the host athymic mouse (a special mouse without capability to reject the transplanted grafts from human) where the cells will form a skin graft with hair if the dermal cells are hair inductive DPC.

Using the assay freshly isolated and cultured mouse embryo dermal cells as well as cultured dermal papilla cells from other species all induced hair formation. They also showed that induced hairs were aesthetically indistinguishable from those of the epidermal donor in length, thickness, and pigmentation. The investigators stated that the newly formed hairs were histologically normal and could resemble a complete natural hair.

We at Los Angeles hair transplant surgery centers of US Hair Restoration will closely follow up with the progress of hair multiplication and cloning techniques. Although the result of the cultured hair on animals has been released before, the current released article is interesting and elucidates more on the characteristics of cultured hair during the process of hair multiplication so called hair cloning. It seems like we still have a long way to go till we can practically use hair multiplication techniques in restoring human hair.

Recently published in the Journal of Medical Hypotheses was an interesting article on the treatment of alopecia by transplantation of hair follicle stem cells and dermal papilla cells (the cells of the bottom of hair follicles) in alginate gels (media used for cell transplantation).

A group of scientists at regeneration lab of tissue engineering, Department of Bioscience of life science in Northwest University of China authored this article. They proposed a system to use the two important hair stem cells to form mature hair in people with hair loss. They explain that the discovery of hair follicle stem cells (FSC) brings gospel to the affected individual of hair loss because of its capacity of generating new hair when they interact with mesenchymal dermal papilla cells (DPC).

The above two cells are known as the necessary cells for formation of new hair. Since both FSC and DPC have strong proliferative capacity and the patient’s own cells could be expanded considerably in vitro, they hypothesize that the microencapsulation of the two kinds of cells in alginate gels could be implanted into the bald scalp of the patient since alginate gels is effective in cell transplantation. They concluded that the strategy may provide a more convenient and valid alternative to hair loss if the hypothesis proved to be practical.

Here at Los Angeles hair transplant office of US Hair Restoration, we follow the most recent findings on the field hair hair stem cell research or hair multiplication also known as hair cloning. The above theory sounds logical and seems to be simple. However, until it is experimented in the lab and then on life creatures we cannot know how practical it may be. It seems like the race to use hair stem cell for the treatment of men hair loss is started.

Q:

Thanks for the serious information.

I hope they find the hair cloning or something that generates hair follicles in a near future. My question is if this cloned hair would fall or if it is going to be like the donor hair that doesn´´t fall because of it imunnity to dht. I would aprecciatte your answer.

A:

This is a great question and unfortunately we still don’t have a clear answer to it. The problem is most research projects on this topic have been limited in terms of numbers and long term follow up. Intercytex is a biotechnology company that probably has the most promising project on hair multiplication at this point. They have done some studies and finished phase I of a hair multiplication study. Unfortunately the details of their research have not been announced quite clearly. However they announced that they will release some more information in September of 2008. Let’s wait and hope that they clarify some of those issues and answer the questions like yours on the quality and durability of multiplied hair.

Best,

Dr. Mohebi

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 tem “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?” My answer 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.