hair cloning

[sea of possibilities]

will it be a reality some day? any info on it?

[sea of possibilities]

will it be a reality some day? any info on it?

[Dr. Timothy Carman]

Sea-

I think that the breakthrough will occur when we are able to first clone SKIN. This will revolutionize the manner in which patients who have experienced large amounts of skin surface deficits (eg, burn patients, trauma patients, patients with congenital deformities). Traditionally, these patients are treated utilizing autologous (their own) skin, which is taken from another part of the body (usually the thighs), thus leaving a significant scar. The quality of the grafted skin, though functional, leaves much to be desired, cosmetically speaking. The ability to clone skin would truly be a miracle to many patients who suffer from the above conditions. I think it would be considered a milestone in "modern" medicine, on par with Penicillin and the introduction of surgery.

That said, the process of cloning specific types of skin is simply dependent on the type cloned. Hence, the cloning of hair bearing scalp should present no additional boundaries, per say.

This would also make logical sense, I think, as I would believe that trying to create the complex structure of the hair follicle would necessarily involve it's inception as a structure created from a specialized type of skin.

How far away? I'll go out on a limb and say 10 years.

 

Timothy Carman, MD

[TheHairLossCure]

Are you asking because the reality (or unreality) of hair cloning will have a bearing on your hair transplant decisions?

 

Personally, I think patients should proceed with their HT plans with the expectation that cloning will not be an option. It will, but the whens and hows are ify. Some people don't do hair transplants because they are waiting for cloning. Not doing HT is fine, but cloning should not be the reason. Conversely, some patients wish to be very aggressive with HTs with the idea that, by the time their donor is exhausted, hair cloning can save the day. Again, the reasoning is flawed in my opinion.

[BaldReaper]

Spoiler alert 16 years later, no hair cloning yet

[Gatsby]

I think you’ll find that gene editing will come before hair cloning. We cloned sheep a couple of decades ago. We can grow hair and even an ear on mice. However growing hair on a human being is a quantum leap. 

[mr_peanutbutter]

12 hours ago, BaldReaper said:

Spoiler alert 16 years later, no hair cloning yet

if verteporfin regenerates hair to a certain percentage we got really close though