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Hair Club For Men: A Potential Player in the Hair Cloning Business?
Hair Club on Hair Cloning:
Several researchers are working on techniques to clone hair.
The focus of this research is to take a single hair and make
several copies of it. The application of this procedure would be
used in the form of hair transplantation.
Today’s techniques of transplantation involve taking a fixed
amount of donor hair from the back of the person's head and
redistributing it to the balding areas. The problem with this
technique is that the limited donor hair can never replace the
amount of hair that was lost, and results can not achieve a
substantial amount of density. Hair cloning could overcome this
problem by having hair grown in a laboratory from an individual’s
hair and then implanted into the scalp. Since the amount of hair is
unlimited, results should be able to match the existing density of
the rest of the person scalp. As
of today’s date, there is only one method that can achieve these
results, the Bio-Matrix strand by strand process.
Hair Cloning
is still experimental. After a small section of the scalp is
removed, the individual hair follicles are dissected under the
microscope. The hair's own stem cells, known as bulge stem cells,
are then removed and placed in a special culture medium. They are
chemically treated and trigger to divide. It is believed that each
of the bulge cells has the potential to create numerous hair
follicles. Some are harvested immediately while others are kept in a
deep freezer for future use.
After the
harvesting is complete, the cloned hair follicles would then be
transplanted back into the scalp creating an unlimited source of
growing hair.
These techniques however are very difficult and many hurdles have
not yet been overcome. The main hurdles are: Is the hair permanent
and does it grow and cycle normally? Is it safe or is there any sign
of abnormal cellular activity? Does the regenerated hair have the
same cosmetic characteristics as the original hair?
The current estimates suggest that it could be
ready for human testing in 10 – 15 years if there are no side
effects.
If this technology is
perfected, Hair Club will offer hair cloning in the future.
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