Quality Assurance Program for Hair Transplant & Hair Replacement

Although Dr. Gho and Dr. Unger are both working on the next breakthrough in hair restoration, their inventions are not the ultimate answer for baldness. Many believe the ultimate cure lies in gene therapy which could be more than 10 years away.


Dr. Christiano stunned the world about two years ago when she discovered the "hairless" gene. However, in our opinion, the "hairless" gene may have been the exact opposite of what hair loss sufferers are looking for. The "hairless" gene is probably a better candidate for research and development in a genetic hair removal treatment. Specifically, the idea would be to find out exactly how to turn on the "hairless" gene in our body in order to trigger shedding.


In March 2001, scientists from Australia reported that they may have identified the first gene associated with male pattern baldness. It was reported that the gene is a derivative of the androgen receptor (AR) gene that is found predominantly in bald or balding men.


The "Stul" gene variant of the AR was discovered by Stephen Harrap and his colleagues at the University of Melbourne, Australia.


The objective of the research is to determine if the androgen receptor gene is associated with male pattern baldness. The research team compared the frequencies of the androgen receptor gene Stul restriction site in men with extensive baldness vs men with no indication of baldness. Over 500 subjects were involved in this experiment.


The results of the experiment showed that the androgen receptor gene Stul was present in over 90% of the subjects. However, some cautioned that the findings are less than conclusive because the same gene was found in over 77% of the controlled subjects. Researchers at the University commented that mutations in AR may play a role in male pattern baldness, however, the condition is likely to be caused by more than one genes.


While this is encouraging news, we still believe that the next ground breaking announcement for hair restoration will come from researches in tissue engineering and stem cells and not from gene therapy. For one thing, the current report is less than conclusive. We are still a long way from being able to identify all the genes that are associated with male pattern baldness. Once all the genes responsible for male pattern baldness are identified, then comes the next challenge of figuring out how to turn the genes on or off.

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