Dr. Coen Gho is publishing a study on “Partial Unit Extraction” in the Journal of Dermatological Treatment. We’ve obtained a copy ahead of print. In his technique, a follicle is split in half length-wise; with one half implanted into a new area, the other left to recover and regenerate itself.

According to the study, 97.7% of hair in the donor site and 95.9% in the recipient site regenerated and became otherwise normal hair-producing follicles. This potentially means that via surgery alone, patients have an unlimited amount of donor hair for transplants. No waiting for FDA approval, no injecting chemicals, no ingesting drugs.

The Technique

What you’re looking at above is an illustration of the process, containing the visible hair (brown), hair follicle (dark pink), and connective tissue (white). According to the study, a very small hollow needle is placed around the hair, detaching the connective tissue from each unit while leaving enough tissue behind to for the hair follicle to regenerate itself.

The extracted pieces are visually selected as being suitable (at a rate of between 69-94%) , then set aside in an anti-apoptic, anti-oxidant, and growth-stimulating solution of : sodium chloride, potassium chloride, magnesium sulphate, sodium phosphate, calcium chloride, glucose, sodium bicarbonate, sodium lactate, sodium pyruvate, human serum albumin, insulin, bis(maltolato)oxovanadium (BMOV) and vitamin E.

On the recipient site where the hairs will be transplanted, the skin is disinfected, anesthetized, and marked repeatedly with an acupuncture needle dipped in black pigment. Holes are then punched and cleared with the same diameter needle and forceps used in the extraction process.

From here, the pieces from the donor site are implanted into the recipient area, with the aim being “to implant sufficient follicle and connective tissue from several hair follicles”.

Think of each extraction like taking cuttings from a plant to create a clone, the practice in which horticulturalists genetically duplicate a plant that may have favorable features like resistance to a particular disease. Material is cut directly from the host plant and given a new environment to develop itself into a fully independent organism, roots and all. Sometimes this is as simple as cutting a stem and leaf off and placing it in a cup of water.

Horticulturalists know that if too much material is cut from the original plant, it will die. If too little is taken, the new plant will never develop.

Similarly, Gho has spent a considerable amount of time discerning the amount of material to be taken, and how (“transversal and longitudinal”). And just like the plant clones, the new hair should be a genetic clone of the source site, resisting the conditions that destroyed the long lost hair in balding areas.

The Results

Some of the disadvantages are also listed:

1. Implanted hair can take up to a year to start growing
2. A small study group was used, “a large group is needed to study the real clinical relevance”
3. Very labor intensive, with sufficient grafts taking a full day

Conclusion

Coen Gho

This is a big deal, folks. And is happening right now.

Together with Histogen, this is the first year we’ve actually seen the finish line approaching. Hair on human heads beyond speculation and animal models. It’s easy to become numb and skeptical from watching years of half-hopes come and go, but this is a very good time to be excited.

Big thanks to James Bond

Girls at party: How old are you?

Hair Loser: 25.

Girls: plus..?

Hair Loser: 25 plus nada. Plus nada.

Girls: (laugh)

Hair Loser: [..] I’m officially out of material. So.. whatever.

Yowch. For any of you encountering this situation, here’s a more appropriate response:

Hair Loser: I’m 25.

Girls: plus..?

Hair Loser: 25 plus fuck you.

But don’t fret, dear sympathizers, inspirational piano music and graphic surgery footage follow shortly after his interpersonal humiliations. He opted for a strip hair transplant, which seems potentially regrettable considering how aggressive his MPB is. This episode feels very much like an advertisement for hair transplants, but I suppose that’s to be expected for a quick and dramatic TV fix.

Thanks, baldtruthtalk.com

Joseph Greco, PhD, describes his positive experience coat­ing grafts with PRP as well as placing the gel into recipient sites and the donor area. In a personal communication, Greco told me that he recently saw two patients in whom PRP was used in their transplant 6 months prior. “My first impression was that they looked as though they were at 9 to 10 months rather than 6 months. The transplanted hair appeared more mature, with more aesthetic density than most patients do at that time.” Of course, this is anecdotal data but from some­one with as much as experience as Joe, I have to put some stock in that.

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We had big expectations.

Our pre-millennial pipedreams were always clear; “The Year 2000″ was to be splashed above our lives like a marquee of technological miracles: jetpacks, robot maids, holograms, hoverboards, cure for cancer, cure for ugly, no more woes.

Cut to 2007 and the best we’ve got are iPods, vacuum robots that bump into furniture legs like retarded pets, cars that use a little less gasoline than your 1976 Monte Carlo, and every genetic defect we’ve always had. We’re still a bunch of disgruntled bald guys that can’t do a fucking thing about our shiny pates but ingest pharmaceutical poison and rub lotion on our scalps that smells like burnt condoms. But we can do it while listening to iPods!

I need hairloss with a slow hand

Not much has changed since 1997 when Propecia (Finasteride) forked from its prostate treatment roots (Proscar) to combat baldness. That marked the last FDA approved drug to treat hairloss, and is still only the second product to ever be cleared to this day. The first product, Rogaine (Minoxidil), was approved almost twenty years ago in 1988.

The vast majority of hairlosers attempting to self-medicate will typically stick with a combination of these two, complimented with similarly acting natural supplements and off-label uses of other drugs.

There’s a palpable sense of helplessness that comes with losing one’s hair; this is clear in the adolescent expectations that carry each new treatment forward, a reckless faith that however dubious the source, says this may finally be the thing to free you from your affliction and self-loathing. Every year becomes littered with the remnants of uncertainty, lost hope and disappointment.

Some things are always certain; enterprising cunt wafers entrepreneurs still continuously capitalize on men’s desperation and put out product after product of pseudoscience nonsense that read like the ads for x-ray goggles and hovercraft plans in the back of a boyscout magazine. Here’s a few recent favorites:

• Lasercomb: a device that shoots Deathstar lasers at your head while you brush hope into the space where your hair used to be.
• Toppik: a glitter kit for grown men containing baldspot glue and a salt-shaker filled with black spacedust. Just don’t go swimming. Or lay on pillowcases. Or people.
• Avacor, Folliguard: Why pay $15 for a jug of Minoxidil, the twenty year old drug, when you can pay $350 for what amounts to Minoxidil mixed with elephant toenails and strawberry jam? Nice try, fucking Harry Potter marketeers.

Some success can be found with current treatments. The recurring theme among almost all successful therapies is suppressing DHT, but this will always be a losing battle. Some men have regrowth, some don’t respond well, most just slow down the inevitable. Sprays, creams, pills, shampoo, concealers, hats, hairpieces– it gets to a point where the burden of maintenance and obsession outweighs the trauma of losing your hair in the first place.

On the off-label drug front, Nizoral (Ketoconazole), a drug normally used to treat dandruff in shampoo form, has been a popular additional treatment for hairloss in the last few years. Finasteride’s successor, Dutasteride, is being used for hairloss, but it isn’t the knockout champion as initially hoped. Topical Spironolactone is popular too, and also makes the rounds in the transsexual circuit as a chemical castrator. “I rub anti-man on my head”; quite the conversation starter.

Naturalists tend to concentrate on various antiinflammatories, Saw Palmetto being the main exception, used as a pussy natural alternative to Finasteride.

More extreme experimentalists will go for homemade concoctions and grey market drugs from other countries, like RU58841. A different mixture containing boric acid and requiring a lengthy stovetop preparation was popularized by a Japanese forum user named Waseda several years ago.

In the world of hair transplant surgery, limited donor hair will always be a problem. You’re basically taking evenly distributed hair from one area and putting it in another area, balding Peter to pay Paul. Some doctors have resorted to using extracted body hair, which is great news if you’re Robin William’s knuckles, but probably not so great otherwise.

Hair on the horizon

There’s a joke amongst hairlosers about every good treatment being perpetually 5 years away. For the first time in history, this may actually be an overestimation.

Several companies have been developing techniques to extract the loss-resistant follicles at the back of men’s heads, duplicate the cells, then inject them into the balding areas. This is commonly referred to as Hair Multiplication. True, it isn’t the ideal, which would be a vaccination against your own natural loss, but goddamn if this isn’t good enough. It’s expected to be cheaper than existing hair transplant technology, but there are still some unknowns about quality.

Leading the pack is Intercytex, a UK-based biotechnology company. They released the results of their phase II trial recently. Make no mistake about it; this is an exciting time. Not exciting in the sense of not looking like “that bald asshole” to the women across from you, but exciting in that we can see a finite amount of time left until that is obtainable.

Stay tuned!

The most shocking method being discussed by none other than Maria Siemionow and her team, is a full human scalp transplant. The first swing at this idea is not for the cosmetically challenged individuals that need a better head of hair to go with their new Ferrari, but a more practical use for people that have been badly burned or involved in some type of traumatic situation damaging their hair. Regardless of the current application of this hair raising innovation, this paves the way for rich or determined men to once again have a full head of natural hair.

How does one go from burn victims to men with money to burn? A procedure this severe would require anti-rejection medication, black market dealings, severe desperation and a Flashdance headband to cover your forehead circumcision ring. It’s a moot, overstated headline, what with so many technologies around the corner.

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