Is Follicle Cloning the Ultimate Hair Loss Cure?

Scientists are at the forefront as well in trying to come up with a cure for hair loss or alopecia or baldness. Hair loss is a growing problem that causes more devastating effects to a man or woman on an emotional and psychological level than the physical level that it directly affects. Clinical tests and research are continuously conducted in trying to give an ultimate solution to the problem of alopecia or hair loss.

Several research teams around the world have successfully cloned human hair follicles, though only in limited amounts, which could prove to be the most effective permanent cure for baldness. The treatment is expected to be available in two years. In what might become the most effective permanent treatment for baldness, several research teams around the world have successfully cloned human hair follicles—though only in limited amounts.

Though human trials are yet to be held, the cloned follicles have been successfully implanted into the soles of the feet of mice and with human trials expected within two years, the new technology is giving hair loss sufferers a great hope of remedy.

Now, the challenge for scientists at the University of Melbourne and St. Vincent’s Hospital, and for research teams at Berlin Technical University, is to increase the number of follicles that can be cloned from a single hair taken from a patient’s scalp.

At the moment, one hair produces only one or two clones.

“We’ve got to find a way of increasing the yield,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Prof. Rod Sinclair, head of the research team at St. Vincent’s.

“We’ve got to find a way of multiplying one hair extracted into 1,000 hairs. What commonly happens in the expansion process is that they lose their ability to induce new hair follicles,” he said.