Beard Hair Cloning Source

Sir, Can you please comment on this:
‘Auto-cloned’ beard hair viable alternative donor source for transplantation

I caught this presentation at a meeting of the ISHRS about 2-3 years ago. I was very impressed with the idea, but the proof was severly lacking with a minimal number of patients presented. Based upon hearing the presentation, Dr. Robert Bernstein and I decided to repeat the process on a few human volunteers. The process failed to work in our hands.

Considering that this doctor has been doing this now for a few years and only 5 patients were shown without publication in a peer review journal, I would look at the study with a jaundiced eye. I tend to believe less of such claims when there is no proper documentation or a good research study based upon good scientific methodology. The world is still rebounding from the Korean debacle for cloning and it shows two things: (1) we are gullible because we want to believe that cloning or this type of ‘free’ hair is something we all can have, and (2) honesty is always the best policy. To date, hair cloining is in its infant stage and there is no guarantee that the industry will develop along the lines of any particular investigator’s approach.