You Can’t Compare Cloning Advances Today with Promises Made Decades Ago

Hey Doc. Thanks again for your blog. Last night I was pondering the future and was wondering whether or not you could help me with something that has been niggling away at me for a couple of weeks now.

Can you please give us a history on the failed ideas and companies that made promises for a hair loss cure 20 – 50 years ago. Just the ones that had any scientific merit would suffice, well of course the others might provide some good comic relief so its your call ;)

My own thoughts are as follows, food for thought?

It is my understanding that the failed promises of 50 years ago did not include stem cell research, regenerative medicine, and whatever modern approach to ‘hair cloning’, companies like Histogen and Aderans use today. They simply could not have had today’s recent scientific break through technology to back them up.

In which case what where the promises back in the day? Or were the doctors of 50 years ago merely just saying that ‘there will be a cure in 3-5 years’ to spread hope. Very kind of them.

What about Propecia people may say? I agree that Propecia has been around for a long time but that was an accidental find by researchers hunting out a cure for mens prostate problems. In other words exactly like your recent article on how researchers discovered they could change human cells from one type of cell to a skin cell complete with hair follicles. In that article you state why would they change their research. Well I’d say for exactly the same reason that Propecia did when they accidentally became a billion dollar company.

Today we see companies like Histogen, Aderans, and a few others that are actually showing positive results and backing them up with photographs. If they are legitimate images then the future looks promising. By promising who couldn’t do with just a little more transplant hair – maybe if we’re lucky Histogen will be able to simply increase the yield in our donor areas. That alone would be fantastic.

50 years ago things were different. Nobody had heard of, or at least practised, things like Nano Technology or Stem Cell research. I wasn’t even born. We didn’t have cellphones and the US military were not growing peoples limbs back!

With all the modern changes going on I’m just not sure if it is helpful to compare today’s tech with the tech of 50 years ago. All I hear is that 20-50 years ago they promised us that there will be a cure in 3-5 years. Well what were they promising – I’d love to know :)

Yours with love to all my balding brethren.

In regards to the accidental stem cell follicle discovery, I suppose it depends on the priorities of the researchers on whether they want to switch gears or start another study. It could be that the news of their accidental discovery was made public to garner interest in the project and to take on investors. I’m just guessing here, though.

Propecia is made by Merck, a large pharmaceutical company that didn’t become a billion dollar company by accident and makes more medication than just Propecia… but I see what you’re getting at and agree that money talks.

I do thank you for the input, but I am not a cloning expert nor a historian on cloning of hair. I could spend weeks or more researching the paths taken in hair loss cures over the past 50 years, and while it would likely make for interesting reading, it is beyond my scope at this time. What I do know is that doctors have been stating and vaguely projecting that cloning of hair is on the horizon within most of our lifetimes. I certainly hope that is the case, but the timelines have been moving with such frequency that it’s easy for people to grow skeptical until there’s an actual working model in place.