Clone Hair and The Future of Hair Transplants (Hypothetical)

[NARMAK]

So, i hope this is the right place to pose this question. 

At present, just using the hair from the back of the scalp and managing that to the best of the doctors ability is the way we do hair transplants. Creating that currently gold standard "Illusion of Density". 

How would hair transplants look in the future if we had say unlimited hair graft clones? 

Say a clinic could extract a single, double, triple etc. and even selectively get the right calibre of hair for temple points etc. and then clone them for an unlimited supply. 

Now when it comes to implanting them, would even the top doctors attempt to stick with their current density groupings to create the "Illusion of Density" or would they even attempt say greater density in a single pass? 

My own theory on this was that there may be a study needed to be done by the top clinics. 

Group One with unlimited grafts and density stacked to natural hair density matching the typical donor area etc. 

Group Two with unlimited grafts stacked at a 2/3 density approach. 

Group Three with unlimited grafts and the same current philosophy of hair transplants as if dealing with the finite donor area at the back of the hair. 

After 12 months, each group would be fully evaluated to see how their graft survival and growth has been. 

We would probably be able to further tell if without having to extract from the back of the head and placing, reduces the strain on the body to heal the donor area and instead this leads to a boosted survival rate in dense packing to natural or boosted transplant density. 

The other Group Three imo is a good baseline group because it follows the principles of current hair transplants for Illusion of Density etc. and the idea that grafts will find a better chance to survive as they are less likely to compete for blood supply etc. 

The advantage of being conservative in Group Three also meaning you could try a second pass for density 12 months later. 

Well, that's my late night musing. Feel free to share your own thoughts on how hypothetically you'd like to see the future of hair transplants if unlimited clone grafts were actually a reality in the future. 

[HappyMan2021]

Is hair cloning really the end all be all of hair transplants? That's what everyone makes it seem like. 

Even with hair cloning, there will always be plenty of bad doctors mangling their patients. 

In fact, hair cloning will make the popularity of hair transplants explode, leading to an exponential and absurd amount of  tons of uninformed and uneducated desperate balding guys getting hacked in back-alley procedures.

Edited January 29, 2022 by SadMan2021

[NARMAK]

13 minutes ago, SadMan2021 said:

Is hair cloning really the end all be all of hair transplants? That's what everyone makes it seem like. 

Even with hair cloning, there will always be plenty of bad doctors mangling their patients. 

In fact, hair cloning will make the popularity of hair transplants explode, leading to an exponential and absurd amount of  tons of uninformed and uneducated desperate balding guys getting hacked in back-alley procedures.

Unlimited hair cloning of DHT resistant hair imo is the only thing that would help a person who's already lost hair. 

Assuming a miracle cure somehow popped along and gave you 100% of your hair back from before any MPB etc. ever happened, the question is how many men would end up with a juvenile and silly looking hairline. 

Another potential cure imo is something that could completely halt scalp DHT in its tracks from ever affecting the hair and causing MPB.  You still run into the issue of maybe in that scenario, the damage being done and hair lost never coming back. 

You are 100% right, that if there was unlimited clone hair, the restorative industry would explode but like anything that imo under even cosmetic surgery that has exploded, the onus as it always does seem to be is on people do do their due diligence. In fact, just as you shouldn't at present go to any old HT clinic, you need to ensure the same principles are followed for your procedure to be done at somewhere competent with a proven track record. 

Just because we now have an unlimited graft supply, that doesn't suddenly mean the issues of incompetence disappear. The artistry of designing the hairline, angulations and curl for temple points etc. all need to still be done right. This means that if the top doctors could somehow find a way to train enough competent future doctors, we could see a rise in demand but perhaps enough people competent enough to try help those that want it. 

[pre-screened]

Listen hair cloning - is way the down the priority list of body parts requiring research and expirmentation to be cloned. Dream on.

The thing that people should be very very excited about and really seem not to be - is the development of proven topical dustastride from someone like Hasson & Wong, in a formulation that has close to zero systemic absorption, excellent scalp subcutaneous DHT removal AND no impact on circulating DHT levels. Something like this might require application once a week perhaps.

Given long term finasteride studies in Japan have shown something like 92% of propecia users maintained or improved their hair follicle count over 10 years….https://www.oatext.com/Long-term-(10-year)-efficacy-of-finasteride-in-523-Japanese-men-with-androgenetic-alopecia.php. My expectation would be that a dutasteride topical would be like 99% effective in basically halting hair loss forever in 99% of patients.

In a world where you could walk into to Konior / Hasson & Wong / Gabel / Bisanga / Couto……..and say ok I guarantee you I wont lose a single hair on head from this day forward to androgen alopecia opens a world of possibilities….effectively every zone on your head becomes a doner zone……7000 / 8000 FUE’s could be performed safe in the knowledge that the patients balding wasn’t going to progress

[NARMAK]

17 minutes ago, pre-screened said:

Listen hair cloning - is way the down the priority list of body parts requiring research and expirmentation to be cloned. Dream on.

The thing that people should be very very excited about and really seem not to be - is the development of proven topical dustastride from someone like Hasson & Wong, in a formulation that has close to zero systemic absorption, excellent scalp subcutaneous DHT removal AND no impact on circulating DHT levels. Something like this might require application once a week perhaps.

Given long term finasteride studies in Japan have shown something like 92% of propecia users maintained or improved their hair follicle count over 10 years….https://www.oatext.com/Long-term-(10-year)-efficacy-of-finasteride-in-523-Japanese-men-with-androgenetic-alopecia.php. My expectation would be that a dutasteride topical would be like 99% effective in basically halting hair loss forever in 99% of patients.

In a world where you could walk into to Konior / Hasson & Wong / Gabel / Bisanga / Couto……..and say ok I guarantee you I wont lose a single hair on head from this day forward to androgen alopecia opens a world of possibilities….effectively every zone on your head becomes a doner zone……7000 / 8000 FUE’s could be performed safe in the knowledge that the patients balding wasn’t going to progress

You're on a hair loss forum, obviously the primary focus will be towards hair loss and hair cloning is something some companies are working on. 

Also, i'm sceptical of Topical Dutasteride being this next big saviour for men. We currently don't have the data and we don't know how it will even be as mass produced and distributed. 

If something like topical Dutasteride truly did what you say above, then it would certainly be a great option, but as we very well know, patient adherence with topical treatments in the past hasn't been great over the longer term compared to popping a Finasteride/Dutasteride pill and going about your day. 

If somehow it's proven that this topical Dutasteride can block as much scalp DHT as the oral pill, keep the regular DHT in the body unaffected and functioning as intended and require application only 1x a week and at a reasonable cost. I would instantly switch over from oral Dutasteride i'm taking atm. 

However, DHT resistant hair cloning giving us unlimited grafts opens up the possibility of ridding us of the issues of people being over harvested and thinning in the donor area. The "black hole" of the Crown area no longer being a problem to fill even if you chuck 1.5-2x more grafts at it than would have been done prior. Also matching the natural hair density you have. 

To dismiss a well of unlimited grafts is folly though imo. 

 

[BadBeat]

Unlimited donor......this is like a wet dream for all of us.

[pre-screened]

7 hours ago, NARMAK said:

To dismiss a well of unlimited grafts is folly though imo. 

Who would dismiss a well of unlimited grafts….not me would love it…..what I’m dismissing is what appears to be a misplaced belief that somehow hair cloning as a solution is even worth the cheap ink spilled on hair loss forums like this. 

It’s fantasy , it belongs more in a science fiction forum than in hairloss forums. No serious work/research is being done on this ‘area’ currently….and I put area in quotes because it isn’t even an area being pursued by anybody seriously. That’s how far away from the reality hair cloning fantasies are.

Edited January 30, 2022 by pre-screened

[Gatsby]

In my humble opinion the answer will more likely come from gene editing. Not hair cloning. It's one thing to grow a human ear on a mouse. It's a quantum leap to get that ear to grown on a human patient.

[NARMAK]

I think my word use of "cloning" may not be the most scientifically accurate but there's a few videos out on YouTube by Matt Dominance etc. that talked about the companies trying to figure out how to replicate DHT resistant hair. 

I think should we ever find such a solution to produce these grafts and in an unlimited amount as needed, then it fixes the limited donor problem. 

I've not 100% i think read into the gene editing thing as posted above but i will probably guess as long as the end result is not necessarily a "cure" per se for men who are already bald, but can stop hair loss entirely in its tracks, that's good. 

I guess the dream situation is something that allows a male to have their hair loss completely stop once we get to the more normal looking mature hairline, or maybe we'll see a bunch of guys lasering off a hairline design otherwise lol. 

I think though then we might see procedures tilt towards aesthetic designs that people want to have for their hair. Lower, more boxed etc.