TLDR Growing hair cells in the lab from plucked hairs could lead to a new, less invasive, and cheaper baldness treatment.
The study conducted in 2015 aimed to culture hair stem cells in vitro and study their morphology for the treatment of androgenetic alopecia (AGA). The researchers proposed that plucked human hairs could be a cost-effective source for treating male baldness, and in vitro culturing of hair follicle cells could be a potential method to reintroduce the cultured cells back into the balding scalp. Hair follicle cells from normal and AGA male groups were cultured without a feeder layer, and the morphology of these cells was observed for 14 days. Keratinocytes appeared after 24 hours, Melanocytes at 48 hours, and stem cells in 7 to 10 days. The shelf life of cultured cells from normal and AGA groups was 12 and 7 days, respectively. The cells were successfully harvested and their genomic DNA was extracted. This hair cloning technique could be an alternative to traditional hair transplantation, preserving the 'donor hair area', potentially being cheaper and more 'patient friendly'.
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