In the News – Dr Jahoda’s 3D Cultures Might Be the Key to Hair Cloning
Snippet from the article:
We may now be a hair’s breadth away from a cure for baldness. For the first time, new human hairs have been coaxed into growing from specialised skin cells that can be multiplied in number to potentially create a full head of hair.
Hair-raising remedies for hair loss currently consist of hormonal drugs to slow the process and hair transplants – where a section of hair follicles is moved from one area of the head to another. Finding a way to grow more hair, however, has proved difficult.
Hair growth in adults occurs naturally in a process known as hair neogenesis – where cells called dermal papilla cells that span the top two layers of skin coax surrounding cells to form hair follicles. One reason hair loss occurs is when papillae stop working.
Read the rest at New Scientist — 3D drops raise hopes of cure for baldness
I posted a few links about this research last month, but I just read this article in New Scientist about the recent work by Dr. Colin Jahoda, who presented this material at the 2013 ISHRS meeting, and wanted to write a bit more about it.
The key to his findings was his ability to produce hair by growing dermal papilla cells in a 3D manner. The process starts with the isolation of the dermal papilla cells, then let them grow and multiply so that their numbers increase. These cells are obtained from discarded hair transplant tissue and once put into a nutrient broth, some 30 hours later, each drop of solution contains about 3000 dermal papilla cells. These cells were injected into neonatal foreskin which is known to be hairless, easily available as it is taken from babies who were circumcised. The donor cells comes from between 5-7 patients. After about 6 weeks of growth in a 3D matrix solution there is growth and some hair actually can be seen.
Dr. Jahoda believes that the key to his success was the use of a 3D matrix for growing the dermal papilla. The dermal papilla cells reprogram the skin cells as they grow and these reprogrammed cells form hair follicles. He believes that this will eventually lead to “hair cloning” therapies and the end result, he hopes, will not even require a surgical procedure like hair transplantation. Now that he knows which genes need to be expressed, drugs might even be developed that can reactivate the dermal papilla precursors in the scalp of balding people. Dr. Melanie McDowell from the University of Adelaide in Australia said, “The cool thing about hair follicles is you already have the channel into them, so topical creams have a good chance of getting down into where they’re needed.”
I would expect that this would take years to identify the appropriate drug and then take the process through the FDA. For our audience reading this post, please be patient and give the researchers some room to finish defining the process and finding that “magic cream” they are looking for.
Cream or injection…whatever it may be… Sign me up inject/lather me all over my body so that I become an ultimate DHT resistant Sasquatch.
This is not a joke. I’m being serious.
Thanks for this Dr Rassman!
Excuse my frustration but I really hope this isn’t another “10 years” then result in nothing just as Intercytex, Histogen, Follica and every press release claiming a cure with hair grown on mice.
Its almost 2014. Something more effective then Minoxidil and Propecia.
It’s sad to say but it will be another 10-20 years till another great treatment will come out.
“These cells are obtained from discarded hair transplant tissue….”
Mmm where are we going to get sufficient tissue (for treating all of us baldies), you know, once hair transplants become obsolete??
Great post! Hope something comes of this.
This is kind of a long shot, but perhaps the post about a theory regarding gravity and hair loss is substantiated by this research in that areas growing against the direction of gravitational pull are somewhat restricted from growing in that 3rd dimension of the matrix. Considering that there was also an article you brought to our attention stating that the success of cultivating the follicles was increased when the cells were flipped upside down (I may be misunderstanding the article), it seems even more plausible.
See the video here, where its all explained.
I think this is a serious breakthough, and hopefully more labs will follow this route.
This is great!
https://www.gizmag.com/baldness-human-hair-transplant/29485/
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