Should I Start Treatment Now or Wait for Follica?

/by William Rassman, M.D./2 /

Dr Rassman

I feel I might be facing a dilemma with regards to my slightly receded hairline. I’ve seen my GP and he said it seems to be in the early stages or recession and to start using rogaine (I suppose i’m not yet a norwood 2). However, I’ve read that such things as HM or the acell/follica treatments may be available before I’m middle aged (i’m 25 now).

Would you consider it a good idea to use rogaine or wait and see the test photos from Follica which I understand might be released in September. It seems to me that if the newer “one shot” treatments work out then I’ll have wasted time/money and exposed my body to hormone affecting drugs (something I’m not keen on doing)

Thank you for your time.

FollicaThe longer you wait to do something about your hair loss, the more hair that is going to be lost. I would highly doubt that Follica will have something available to you this year or any time soon. You should realize that you are playing a game of Russian roulette with each hair follicle. If you’ve already started to recede, then what are you going to wait for? Follica has much promise, but your hair will not wait on the promises.

You can learn more about Follica from an article published in Scientific American over a year ago, Bye-Bye Comb-Overs? Hair Follicles Found Able to Regenerate, or at their simple site, FollicaBio.com.

Tags: follica, hairloss, hair loss, cloning

Wouldn’t Hair Cloning Put Transplant Docs Out of Business?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Dr. Rassman,

Fist let me say I love this blog and think you are do a wonderful thing by informing people about the many dynamics of hair loss.

I noticed you mentioned and have recently posted about hair cloning as a future treatment for hair loss. I was wondering, let’s say in the next 5 years, there is a big break through with hair cloning and it becomes widely available as a safe treatment for hair loss. What then will happen to hair transplants? Wouldn’t that be bad for the NHI or would your practice just shift to hair cloning and stop doing transplants?

Flying carThe specialty of today’s hair transplant surgeons can become tomorrow’s hair cloners. Who else would be sitting at the cutting edge and wanting to make the market happen?

When the flying car becomes commonplace like everyone has been wishing/hoping for 50+ years, I’m sure the major automakers will be right there at the forefront. As the industry evolves, those that blazed trails aren’t likely to just disappear.

Tags: hair cloning, cloning, hairloss, hair loss, hairtransplant, hair transplant

Hair Cloning Comes to India?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Is this for real? They’re claiming hair cloning is going to happen in a few years.

Dr Batra’s Clinic to Promote Hair Cloning in India

I wish them luck. Of course, we are all waiting for the hair cloning or hair replication solution, but as the article suggests, it will take a few years yet. The article is confusing because on one hand there is a suggestion that the solution is available now and then they talk about the future. To be clear, it is not available now and there is yet to be any fully proven method.

Tags: hair cloning, cloning, hairloss, hair loss, india

Has Hair Transplantation Technology Plateaued?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

Dr. Rassman,
Thank you for taking your time to read this. I know that hair transplantation has improved greatly in the past decade. Do you think that the improvments have plateaued or can we expect even better results in the hair transplant community in the future.
Thank you for all you do.

I am hoping that the follicular unit extraction (FUE) technology will be improved from an instrument point of view. I personally believe that this technology has great room for improvement. With regard to strip harvesting, I think that we have only improved in our overall efficiency, not in a better technique. We are all waiting for breakthroughs in hair cloning, hair replication or stem cell work for creating new hair.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, cloning, future, tools, instrument, fue

In the News – Biotechnology and Hair Loss

/by William Rassman, M.D./1 /

I have been asked over and over again for updates on cloning and hair regeneration. This San Francisco Chronicle reference is one that reviews the status of where we are today.

But what has biotech ever done for bald people?

Some may feel sheepish raising the question, given the weightier problems needing a scientific fix. Hair loss is not a life-threatening condition, concedes Kaiser Permanente dermatologist Paradi Mirmirani. But half the population, both male and female, see their locks thinning by age 50 – and many can’t take the loss lightly, Mirmirani said.

Read the rest of the article — Biotech turns to hair-loss research

Tags: biotech, biotechnology, hairloss, hair loss, cloning, sfgate, sf chronicle

Any Hair Restoration Advancement Predictions?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

How much advancement do you predict will be taking place in the science of hair restoration within the next 5-6 years? Do you think that a male with a class 6 on the norwood scale would have any chance of getting the majority of his hair back? And i’m not talking about your regular hair transplant where the majority of men still look thin on top, i’m talking about the real deal thickness as on the sides and back of the head

Thanks DOC

The exciting happening from last week was the recent discovery of what may be an important genetic marker for causes of hair loss (see In the News – Hair Loss Gene Identified?). The hairs in a Norwood Class 6 pattern balding person are probably still there in some involuted state, possibly at a cellular level. With the right approach, my great hope is that there is a possibility that this hair in your bald area can be stimulated to grow. I couldn’t pinpoint a timeframe for you, though.

Many people will point and shout about how hair cloning or hair multiplication is the next big thing, and more recently people were doing the same jumping up and down for the hair lasers, and many years back there were various tonics and elixirs that were claiming to magically regrow your hair. When any new methods for regrowing hair or preventing hair loss are proven safe and effective, I’m sure you’ll learn all about them — the mainstream media will be all over it.

Tags: hair restoration, hairloss, hair loss, cloning, laser, gene, genetic

Intercytex vs Follica

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Doctor Rassman,hi again. I am a frequent reader of your blog and once again I say thanks for keeping such an interesting and useful source of great information. My question is in regards to Intercytex and Follica. I keep reading about these companies and it is hard not to get excited about the possibilities described there even though actual products/treatments may take a while (if ever) to come out. Anyways, my question is which company (between those two) do you find more promising? I know this will be just a guess or opinion, but I would certainly appreciate your feedback! Thanks a lot!

Your guess is as good as mine. We never really know all of the facts and much of what is known appears to be for public relations purposes. At this point, I don’t really have an opinion when pitting one against the other.

Tags: intercytex, follica, hairloss, hair loss

Today Show Tells How Women Can Stop Hair Loss

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

Every bit of information educates the public. Interesting reading.

From the article —

We normally have, on average, 100,000 hairs on our scalp. And as evinced by our changing hair lengths, roots and visits to our hairdressers, those hairs grow; in fact, 90 percent of our hair is actively growing at any given time. Hair is the second fastest growing tissue in our body after (I’d love for you to guess) … bone marrow.

Read the full article by Dr. Judith Reichman: Today – What women can do to stop hair loss

Auto-Cloning Technique for Facial Hair?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

I have heard of a technique called auto-cloning performed by Dr. Gary Hitzig in New York, New York. He tweezes beard hair under the chin which leaves part of the root to regrow and part of the hairs root stays with the tweezed hair to grow in the transplanted area. I would be very interested in having this procedure performed to thicken my mustache both because of my limited donor hair and for having the thickness and texture of beard hair. Facial hair and body hair transplants are becoming increasingly common why is this technique not more popular as it solves many problems for people who have limited donor hair? Is there a problem with this technique?

My medical group had tried to repeat the work after we heard about it from the doctor who said that he invented the technique. We did it just as he said it was to be done, and as was expected, the results were essentially a complete failure to grow hair. As far as I am aware, nobody has proven this technique or published the method in a peer reviewed journal for confirmation, which says a great deal about credibility. If it worked, I am sure that the technique would be available everywhere, because it infers that you get two hairs for one (hair replication)… something that has not been done by any other.

I also look to the credibility of the ‘inventor’ and via Google, I turned up with the following links:

Tags: auto-cloning, facial, hairloss, hair loss, gary hitzig, new york, hitzig, hairtransplant, hair transplant, replication, cloning, hair cloning

Intercytex and Proto-Hairs

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Hi Dr Rassman,

I think your readers will be interested in the following patent. This was filed by Intercytex on September 27, 2007. I would like your comments on this invention, as well as their claims that they have produced “proto-hairs” in vitro, which may then be implanted into the scalp.

Description of WO2007109223

Here is an excerpt:
“We have for the first time produced such proto-hairs in vitro. A proto-hair may be considered as a part-formed follicle. It can be identified and isolated at a stage of development between the dermal papilla cell stage and the fully formed follicle stage. A proto-hair has a structure which develops from the dermal papilla cell but is no longer a dermal papilla cell as such. The structure of the proto-hair is also not that of a follicle, but it can be seen to have elements of follicle-like structure. A proto-hair is capable of further development. It can develop into a mature hair follicle in a suitable in vitro culture. It can also develop into a mature hair follicle if implanted into a recipient : this means that an in vitro produced proto-hair can subsequently produce a mature hair follicle in vivo.”

At the recent International Society of Hair Restoration Surgery (ISHRS) meeting, a paper was presented by Intercytex and it discussed the proto-hairs. This is an exciting development, but there is still a long way from producing these hair precursors to a clinically, reproducible process for creating hair where none existed. There have been other breakthroughs in the past that produced hair from stem cells, but these have failed to produce mature hair organs. We must be patient and see what comes down the pike.

Tags: intercytex, proto, proto-hair, hairloss, hair loss, cloning, ishrs

Hypothetical — Hair Cloning Scar Repair

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /, ,

I’m definitely hoping that hair cloning will one day be a reality, but my question is, even if I opt for a hair transplant today, doesn’t mean I cannot benefit from hair cloning in the future when it is available right? the cloned hair can simply be planted back into the donor area?

Hair cloning is still in its infancy and we do not have much information about the process of a hair transplant with cloned hair, but I believe you are right and if it becomes available we should be able to transplant cloned hair anywhere that we do with conventional hair transplants now. Currently, we can transplant hair into scalp scars of any kind, including the donor scar in patients who have an unusually widened scar. The process should not be different with cloned hair for all types of scar tissue.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, hair cloning, cloning, scar

All These Medical Miracles, Yet Nobody Can Clone a Damn Follicle?!

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

They can clone a sheep, replace your heart, separate joined at the head babies, Sew back on a penis…Why haven’t any of you doctors figured out how to cure baldness or at least clone a damn hair follicle yet!

Thanks

Attempts are being made, but keep in mind an undetectable natural looking hair transplant is a medical miracle in itself also. Today’s transplants work now, so waiting for the cloning miracle which may or may not come in your lifetime, will only guarantee balding for many of those that want to wait.

Tags: hairtransplant, hair transplant, hair cloning, sheep, heart

Hair Cloning in Italy?

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

is this real?

AssociatedContent.com – Cloning Hair: Good News for the Balding

This link says hair cloning starts..

There have been good scientific studies with transecting the bulbs of individual hairs to obtain more than one hair from each bulb. None of these scientific studies were successful. There does not seem to be any ‘magic sauce’ in this report, so I am skeptical of it, but I would remain open minded if it is real. What was reported here as cloning, is not real cloning so even the terminology is off.

Tags: hair cloning, cloning, hairtransplant, hair transplant, italy, hairloss, hair loss

Playing the Stock Market with Intercytex Shares

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /

Dr. Rassman

I understand you are a doctor, not a financial advisor, but I thought this question was worth mentioning anyway. Currently Intercytex stock is trading around 52 British pounds per share, giving the company a value of about 42 million British pounds. This means that the company is valued at around $83 million. Lets be serious, the success of the cloning procedure is worth way more than that. Lets say there is a 1 in 5 chance of success along with FDA approval within 10 years, the company could be worth a couple billion I’d say. So I would think the stock is a decent bet, at least for those willing to speculate. What do you think?

You are correct in stating that I am a doctor, not a financial adviser. Risks are a matter of timing and intelligent selection. If I knew what to do with discounting the long delays in a financial sense, then it might be worth the gamble. In other words, your best bet is to ask a financial adviser.

Tags: intercytex, hair cloning, stock, stock market, financial advisor, financial adviser

Wnt Proteins and Hair Loss

/by William Rassman, M.D./0 /,

has there been any further talk within the industry about the break through using wnt proteins as a cure for baldness? also do you believe that intercytex are the closest to finding the cure for baldness with their study with hair cloning? finally is it true that hair needs only to be 30% of its original thickness to be cosmetically adequate? many thanks for this website easily the best on the web.

Reference the following pages for Wnt proteins:

  1. PDF file – Towards a molecular understanding of hair loss and its treatment
  2. PDF file – Wnt-dependent de novo hair follicle regeneration in adult mouse skin after wounding
  3. ScienceDaily – Researchers Identify Signals That Cause Hair Follicles To Sprout

I don’t have any knowledge as to how close Intercytex really is in the grand scheme of hair cloning. Their past press releases have indicated that they are doing some exciting work, but the last I read, they were still quite far off from having their technology available to the public (let alone with a good success rate). So really, I have no idea that anyone is close.

With regard to your comment on the thickness of your hair shafts that are able mimic full thickness, well, your guess is as good as mine.

Tags: hairloss, hair loss, intercytex, cloning, hair growth, wnt, protein