donor hair from another person?

[oms]

Is it possible to use someone elses hair as donor hair? someone with the same DNA perhaps? Or is this notion ridiculous.

[oms]

Is it possible to use someone elses hair as donor hair? someone with the same DNA perhaps? Or is this notion ridiculous.

[Mr T]

I asked this question a few weeks ago and was told it would be possible if you had an identical twin. In all other cases, it woud be like recieving an organ transplant. You would need to take medication to try and keep your body for rejecting the new "organs".

 

Now if you have a twin...

 

Mr. T

[oms]

thanks for the replies guys. another question, would a father not have the same DNA?

[Teddw2ds]

I have read some articles based on research that indicates hair follicles are not subject to the same organ-rejection response as other organs. The reason for this difference appears to still be unknown, however.

 

The article I read comes from the site of the clinic in Clearwater, FL that I was planning on using (I ended up deciding not to go with them, though).

 

http://www.hairscalplaserclinic.com/about.html

 

As for using donor hair from a twin... I have an identical twin, and I can assure you he would not be very amenable to the idea, considering he has less hair than I do. I have been using Propecia/Proscar for about 3 years and he has not, so I have a nice ready-made control subject to compare myself against!

[Joe Transplant]

Here is something I found on askmen.com"

 

-"Another potential treatment for balding was described in the November 1999 issue of Nature. Researchers found it was possible to grow hair follicles and hair from donated follicle cells.

 

Hair follicles are one of the few immunoprivileged parts of the body; that is, they are protected from the immune system so the body doesn't treat them as foreign and attack them. Researchers thus wondered if they might be transplanted from one person to another without triggering an immune response, resulting in rejection. Hair follicle cells, donated from the arm of a male scientist, were implanted into the arm of a female scientist. A few weeks later, she grew large, thick, dark hairs -- unlike her own -- in the area of the transplant."-

 

I too was curious if it was possible, but this was the only research I came up with. I don't even know if it's true, but thought I'd share my finding.

[oms]

Thanks for the input guys. If this new research is true then i shall be making a trip to a surgeon with my dad who has a whole head of hair; it may stop me feeling annoyed everytime i look at his full head of hair at 46 and my small, dying, head of hair at 22.