There has been a lot of discussion concerning the potential of
hair cloning / hair multiplication during the last few years. Dr. Unger (one
of the pioneers of this technique) points out, that what is popularly called
"cloning" of hair should be more accurately called 'cell therapy' (http://www.walterunger.com/hair_cloning.html
).
The principle of cell therapy is this: Cells are removed from a patient's hair
and millions of similar cells can be reproduced within several weeks. These
cells, when injected into immune-compromised mice, almost always resulted in
the growth of human hairs that lasted until the mice were very old.
As the animal research has been very encouraging, several research teams have started human
clinical trials in the past. Unfortunately the published results of human clinical
trials have been quite disappointing. Dr. Unger (University of Toronto) has
done two human studies since 1998. In the first study, hair grew in only one
of the 10 patients. In the second study, hair grew in three of 13 patients;
however, the growth of hair at the treated sites was not as vigorous as it had
been in the one responder in the first study. Dr. Unger has temporarily discontinued
these studies because of legal problems with the funding. He hopes, that these
problems will be resolved soon.
In spite of these disappointing early study results several other researchers are trying to prefect the technique, e.g.
Dr. Gho from the Netherlands (http://www.ghoclinic.com
) and Prof. Katsutoshi Yoshizato from the University of Hiroshima/Japan.
The biotech company Intercytex (http://www.intercytex.net
) in the UK plans to start Phase-II human clinical studies in the near future
and the Aderans Research Institute (http://www.aderansresearch.com
) in the USA hopes to start Phase-I clinical trials within 2-3 years.
So there is also a lot of hope concerning cell therapy / hair cloning and of course the
Infagen also supports this route of research.
Interesting links:
http://www.clonemyhair.com
http://www.walterunger.com/hair_cloning.html
http://www.hairlosshelp.com/hair_cloning/cloning.cfm