Stem cells and the future?

[swayzedo]

I've been reading a lot of news about hair growth and stem cells and it seems to be the hot topic right now, especially since a few companies ave started moving onto later phases of experimentation with the techniques (Although the old tag of "in 5 years time" is always hovering over it)

 

I for one am greatly looking forward to this because in all honestly.......I really don't want a hair transplant. I want to be able to grow back my own hair and re-awaken the follicles that I already have. I'm sure most would agree that they would certainly prefer this to having grafts.

 

While speaking to some beauty industry (for want of a better description) colleagues, a few said that it was a definite hot topic and that very soon you will be seeing hair and beauty salons with a small lab facility and technician who will easily take your blood, separate the stem cell plasma or whatever it's called and re inject into your scalp and hairs will grow.

 

While I certainly didn't believe a word of what was said because I know the techniques are still in the testing phase and if it were to become available I'm sure most of the reputable hair clinics in the world would be offering it first instead of small businesses I am still rather attracted to the 'idea' that this could be a reality. While any final solution is a long way off, the actual technique employed seems to be rather a simple one. Far simpler than individual splicing and planting of strips as is the case with current HT's

 

Take some blood, process it to get the necessary materials, inject back into scalp. I'm sure anyone familiar with botox injections could master it.

 

Obviously it will cost a fortune when it first appears and only large clinics will be offering it but something in me can actually see it filtering down to this level.

 

Even if it doesn't get past the level of large hair clinics I don't think it will affect HT's that much either. There will always be people who want to change a bit here and there and maybe lower or reshape their natural hairline so that side of it will still be sought after although maybe not as much but it could become a much more specialised technique rather than just 'growing back what you had' (A great excuse to bump the price up as well)

 

Maybe I am being overly hopeful and totally barking up the wrong tree but still, it made me think.

 

Thoughts?

[gillenator]

sway,

 

I see that you are from the UK. How's the Olympic games? Any chance to see them or the tickets still too difficult to purchase?

 

IMHO, if stem cell therapy or cloning ever reaches true fruition, it will surface in Europe or another part of the world before the US will ever allow it.

 

And I agree with you that it is highly more likely that licensed medical professionals will be the frist to actually treat patients with it.

 

But here is the problem with the latter half of stem cell therapy. Is it possible that new hair growth from injections into the thin or balding areas will prodcue hair at the proper angulations as it emerges out of the scalp? I realize that there is some clinical proof doing these injections into small animals like mice, but what about humans? Will they be able to control density? Who knows?

 

So yes I agree that some level of surgery may still be necessary in order to gain the naturalness or aesthetic appeal so crritical to the high visual impact areas like the hairline and temporal lobe areas.

 

Still, the potential of having an endless supply of donor would be awesome to many of us hairloss sufferers!

 

I have been hearing the ole addage, "It will be here in five years" for the past 31 years. :rolleyes:

 

Yet there is more research and more efforts being poured into curing hairloss than ever before in history.

[swayzedo]

Hi Gillenator, thanks for the reply,

 

Believe me I've been trying to avoid the Olympics but it's impossible. I prefer doing sports myself rather than watching them and the UK is a mess economically right now so it's a really expensive piece of taxpayer paid entertainment to have while people are being made unemployed and children have to get a free breakfast at their school because family's can't afford food.

 

The BBC is obsessed by them and it's on TV 24/7.

 

Me, I'll stick to re-runs of Road House and Big Trouble In Little China!

 

Anyway back to hair, yes I do agree there is much more human testing to be done (raises hand and volunteers!) but I read that it was already done on a group of children somewhere either in South America or in the East and it worked really well.

 

I'm going by the assumption that the stem cells once injected will provoke any dormant follicles it reaches into producing hair again so I can't see any reason why your original hairline wouldn't grow back seeing as the follicles themselves wouldn't have moved. Maybe you will need one or two sessions to get them all powering away again though.

 

It's certainly a very exciting time but we'll see what happens in 5 years.

 

Maybe I should start gathering articles and announcements from hair companies from 5 years ago and sent a mass email with the title "Well where is it then?"

[aaron1234]

It is exciting that several companies are working on a stem cell treatment for hair loss. I hope that within the next five years we have something new on the market. But "hope" is the operative word here. I have no certainty that a new non-surgical treatment will be made available. Even if one is approved for the market we don't yet know what kind of results it will provide, what kind of side effects it will have, what kind of frequency we will need the treatments, etc. Lot of unknowns. I say if you really want some hair then bite the bullet and get an HT. Life is too short to wait for something that might happen.

[Spanker]

My thinking exactly. Boards like this have been around ago and there are people that swear in 2001 that the cure is just a couple years away. We don't have too many "decades" to play with, so if you was more hair now, then do the ht.

Edited August 4, 2012 by Spanker

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

There is not doubt that Stem Cells will play a role in all areas of medicine including hair restoration. It is just a matter of how and when.

[NEWHAIRPLEASE]

There is not doubt that Stem Cells will play a role in all areas of medicine including hair restoration. It is just a matter of how and when.

 

I hope the " when " will be sometime in the next 20 years!!

[Dr. Glenn Charles]

Me too. I pray for it every night before I go to bed. It would make so many more unhappy patients candidates for hair restoration.

[Blake Bloxham]

I think "unlimited donor supply"/"hair stem cell transplant" procedures possess the most promise. I really look forward to watching these evolve.

[gillenator]

You're welcome Sway. I can just imagine how crazy things must be in London right now!

 

Yes stem cell therapy will potentially bring hair follicles in the dormant stage back to life (growth phase) and should produce hair like before.

 

It's those follicles that have become sooo miniturized over many years and become so debilitated that there is little to nothing left of them.

 

So no doubt in some cases many new hair follicles would have to be cloned from donor follicles and then re-implanted back into the scalp where the blood supply exists.