Category: Hair Cloning

For all of us desperately following the advances in hair multiplication, do you think that any information would be available before the ISHRS annual meeting (September)in Alaska if discovered or is that venue the most likely outlet for bringing advances to the public? (So I can stop my daily obsessive searches.)

While anything is possible, if a company had a big announcement to make (such as hair multiplication being available to the general public), I doubt they’d wait to announce it just for the ISHRS meeting. These companies are usually looking for financial investors or commercial interest, so it wouldn’t necessarily make sense to hold back any good news just for an annual meeting of doctors. Now if a physician had a presentation for the meeting, that’s a different story.

Though new information could and hopefully will come out from the meeting in Anchorage, I wouldn’t expect a new hair multiplication procedure to be announced as available to the public this year. I guess we’ll find out in September.

Dr Rassman and company,

With all of the recent advances in hair cloning technology: Intercytex, Aderans, Histogen, Acell, WNT proteins, and etc., are you becoming more convinced that we’re getting closer to solving the donor supply problem and thus the hair loss problem?

I don’t have the answer to your question. Ten years ago, we were told that the answers would be seen in under 5 years… and now a decade later we hear the same thing. That says much about the real answer. It’s still a big question mark, though there’s some progress being made.

Greetings from a loyal reader! I did a quick search, and saw that this topic hasn’t been covered on your blog. I was wondering if you’ve ever heard of Replicel? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks!

I haven’t heard about it before, but I’ve looked into it since your email. RepliCel recently completed the acquisition of TrichoScience, a company that worked with hair multiplication. This sounds like more of the same. From the FAQ: “With RepliCel’s treatment a very small punch biopsy is taken and new hair cells are replicated eliminating the need for a large hair donor site to be moved to the bald area.”

Their site says that they’re currently conducting a clinical trial with data expected to become available in the first quarter of 2012. So there’s really not much to know yet, as they’re still testing things and have months of work yet to go.

I would want to know if the investigators obtained an approval from an Institutional Review Board for the research on humans. That might make them credible as these boards are very tight giving approvals on anything less than solid evidence.

Hi Dr. Rassman:

Great blog; very informative. As an eternal optimist and relatively young man (early 30s); I believe that hair manipulation will produce hair cloning for my generation. As a man with a relatively full head of hair destined for a norwood 7 pattern, aside from praying is there anything I can do in preparation. For instance, can one pluck good hairs and store them for future cloning?

Cheers.

I don’t know that you can “prepare” for future cloning, but the hair that you have on the back of your scalp will be a very good source for the future. You don’t have to pluck it and save it.

Hi, just curious what your thoughts are on traveling to foreign countries for hair cloning? I understand radical developments have been made in places like Thailand and I’m interested if you have any experience with this. Much thanks in advance.

With all due respect for Thailand and other foreign countries, do you really think that if hair cloning has been successful it would have escaped the research and popular media of the United States?

What I’m getting at is this — just because you see it advertised in Thailand, it doesn’t mean it’s real. Hair cloning doesn’t yet exist in the way that you’re likely hoping.