Millions of men and women who suffer from premature baldness or hair loss
could soon be able to regain their original lustrous locks - by cloning
their remaining hair in the laboratory, research suggests.
The new technique, known as “follicular cell implantation”, has already shown
positive results in continuing clinical trials on human beings. The work,
being carried out by a British team, is being hailed as a major advance in
hair restoration and is backed by a £1.9 million government grant.
The cell therapy has the potential to provide a limitless supply of an
individual’s hair to replace that lost because of burns, cancer treatment or
simply the onset of age, and could be available to patients within five
years.
The latest results of the Phase II trial, presented at a conference of leading
hair replacement surgeons in Rome, suggest that the technique can increase
hair count in at least two thirds of patients after six months, and four out
of five if the scalp is stimulated beforehand through gentle abrasions that
encourage hair growth.
The new technique involves extracting dermal papilla (DP) cells, the basic
cells responsible for hair growth, from a sample of only about 100 hairs
from the back of the scalp – the area where hair usually continues to grow
despite losses in other areas. These cells are then multiplied many times
over in a special patented culture before being injected back into the scalp
in their millions, stimulating the formation of new hair follicles or
rejuvenating those that have stopped producing hair on the top of the head.
The procedure is being developed by Intercytex, a British company based in
Manchester, which is among many competing to find a cure for hair loss that
affects 40 per cent of men over 50. It may require more than 1,000 tiny
injections to produce that number of hairs in extensively bald patients but
it will be quicker and less invasive than current hair transplant techniques
favoured by celebrities including Sir Elton John and Silvio Berlusconi, the
Italian Prime Minister.
Experts believe that the continual refinements in modern-day hair transplants
and proven medical therapies are creating increased demand for hair
restoration surgery around the world. About 3,000 such procedures – costing
between £2,500 and £7,000 – take place at private clinics in Britain every
year. Current hair transplants involve large clumps of follicles being cut
from the back of the head under local anaesthetic and separated into
individual strands before being transplanted on top of the pate in their
thousands. Surgeons are limited by the extent of hair needed to create a
graft and the scar that it leaves behind.
Bessam Farjo, a hair-loss specialist and president of the International
Society of Hair Restoration Surgery, who is leading the research, said that
results after six months were now available for 11 patients out of 19
currently enrolled on the trial. Of these, four out of five whose scalp had
been stimulated had an increased hair count, noticeable from photographs,
while three out of six without stimulation of the scalp had also noticed
benefits. Full data was not available for two of the remaining patients, he
added.
“We can take a small sample from the back of the head, extract the dermal
papilla [DP] cells and then use a patented method of multiplying these basic
cells of extracted hairs in the lab,” he said. “Within eight weeks they are
capable of generating literally millions of themselves, meaning that only
around 100 hairs are needed in order to produce thousands of new hairs.”
Researchers from the US, Italy and Japan are also exploring the possibility of
cloning hair, including techniques designed to extract stem cells from the
base of the hair follicles.
But Dr Farjo, who runs the Farjo Medical Centres in London and Manchester,
said he was confident that the Intercytex approach was the most advanced and
regulated clinical trial for hair loss anywhere in the world. The full
results of the 48-week study will be available next year.
“For many men and women the consequences of hair loss can be devastating –
whether brought on by pattern baldness or as a result of cancer treatment
such as radiotherapy,” he said. “There are some effective nonsurgical
treatments that can slow down the process but these involve taking daily
pills. For those with more significant hair loss one to two operations per
bald area can give a natural looking head of hair of reasonable density.”
Dr Farjo said that his team was also experimenting with combining the DP cells
with keratinocytes – the cells that produce keratin, the basic building
material of hair – so that they could grow actual hairs for transplant,
rather than injectable cells. This could further improve surgeons’ control
over the amount, direction and appearance of the transplanted hair, he said.
“Hair surgeons and their patients have been waiting for something like this
since the 1980s, but in my view it may be as little as five years before
patients start seeing the benefits.”
Connor Kiely, a hair restoration surgeon based in Ireland, said: “The
possibilties thrown up by this research are very exciting, and we have been
waiting for a long time for a solution like this that will deal with the
problem at source, rather than simply relocating hair from one place to
another."
Andrew Messenger, a consultant dermatologist at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital
in Sheffield, sounded a sceptical note. “If they really have done this then
that is quite an achievement, but I would like to see all the data.
“It does work with other species, but these are other species who grow hair at
the drop of a hat. It’s quite a bit more difficult with humans.”
Marilyn Sherlock, chairman of the Institute of Trichologists, and a practising
specialist in hair loss in Salisbury, Wiltshire, said: “If it works as well
as the preliminary findings suggest, this is going to be absolutely superb.
Baldness is sometimes only noticed once a lot of hair loss has already
occurred and a lot of men who do not have a lot left at the back of their
heads cannot opt for current transplants, while the cost is also prohibitive.
“We don’t yet know what the cost of these injections would be, but if they
were made available they could also be a useful treatment for women whose
hair typically becomes extremely thin all over the head. This could allow a
lot more people to opt for hair restoration who currently might previously
not have considered having anything done.”
