In this technologically-oriented society, modern innovative tools and in-depth scientific analyses paved the way for us to better understand the nature and causes of various diseases, ailments and conditions such as cancer, HIV and even hair loss or baldness.
Indeed, modern science and technology has very significant contributions to the world of hair loss treatment. Through sophisticated and innovative explorations, scientists and researchers have discovered the leading cause of hair loss in both men and women, and that is dihydrotestosterone.
The discovery of DHT as the primary cause of hair loss made rise to various groups of individuals who are more than eager to unearth the best possible treatments for hair loss.
That is why today, various advances in hair loss treatment like hair follicle cloning and stem cell therapy have emerged as potential solutions to end baldness, once and for all.
Let’s take a closer look at the two advances in hair loss treatment and learn which of them has the potential to be the panacea for the various types of alopecia:
Hair Follicle Cloning — is considered one of the most promising areas of hair loss treatment research in the 21st century.
Other Terms: cell therapy, tissue engineering and hair multiplication
Principle: This is a process wherein a healthy hair follicle is replicated to create unlimited supply of hair grafts with the same quality and characteristics as the cloned follicle.
Aim: To successfully reproduce multiple hair follicles from a single follicle taken from a donor area that is already programmed to continue to grow new hairs for a lifetime. If this research will be successful, there will be a limitless supply of hair grafts; in turn, hair can be made thicker without donor-supply constraints.
Current Status: The method of cloning dermal papilla cells from the hair bulbs and injecting them back into the donor’s scalp has not been perfected.
Stem Cell Therapy — is an exciting yet very controversial therapy due to its potential to cure a wide range of conditions and diseases such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, spinal cord injury and hair loss.
Principle: This revolves around a theory on how adult stem cells can be used to generate new hair growth in individuals suffering from various types of hair loss. Stem cell therapy is initiated by means of chemical signals sent from the brain which ‘command’ the stem cells to migrate to the part of the body that needs reactivating.
Aim: To transform adult stem cells into specialist cells wherein they can reproduce and generate new follicles when the existing hair follicles become damaged, dormant or dead.
Current Status: Extreme research is still needed to understand how the transformation from adult stem cells to specialist cells would take place, how the stem cells would know when to migrate to the area that needs reactivating and which cell types will transform to make up the six necessary layers of a functioning hair follicle. At present, scientists were able to transplant healthy stem cells on the skin of mice, but more research is necessary before it can be tried on humans.
These advances in hair loss treatment are now the focus of extreme and careful studies by various groups of scientists and researchers.
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