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Lab-grown cells “cure baldness”

Remaining hair cells are multiplied to fill bald areas Cells grown in the laboratory may offer a possible solution to hair loss, preliminary trials have suggested.

The technique involves taking small amounts of the remaining hair cells, multiplying them, then injecting them into bald areas.

Six months after treatment, 11 out of 19 patients had grown new hair, UK researchers told an Italian conference.

However, a UK specialist said further work would be needed so that the new hair looked right.

“It will revolutionise hair care, I think”

Dr Paul Kemp, Intercytex

Hair loss affects two-fifths of men over 50, and can be a long-term problem for some people following radiotherapy or burns.

Currently available methods of hair transplantation involve taking large clumps of remaining follicles under local anaesthetic and moving them to the desired area, a technique dependent on the amount of hair left, as no new hair is created.

The new method, called “follicular cell implantation”, developed by UK firm Intercytex, claims to be able to provide a limitless supply of replacement hair cells, and, if other trials show it to be safe and effective, could be available within five years.

Doctors take only the dermal papilla cells – cells found in the follicle which are responsible for hair growth.

They are harvested from areas on the back of the head, which usually still have hair growth, and then bathed in a specially-developed chemical in the laboratory, before being placed back into bald areas of the scalp.

The early results suggest that most patients appear to benefit after just a few months, although the numbers involved in the trial are relatively small.

Dr Paul Kemp, Intercytex’s Scientific Officer, said that the presence of the dermal papilla cells encouraged skin cells to start building a brand new hair follicle, or rejuvenated follicles which have stopped producing hair properly.

He said: “It will revolutionise hair care, I think. People will use this when they are starting to go bald – they’ll come and see us, we’ll take a few dermal papilla cells, grow them up in the lab, freeze most of them, and inject some.

“They can keep coming back as the balding process continues. I’m convinced it will work, it’s just a question of fine-tuning the technique.”

Other organs

He said that the same principles could one day be harnessed to grow replacement teeth, or other organs.

“Every hair is a tiny little organ, after all.”

Professor Val Randall, from the University of Bradford, said that the progress made was “exciting”.

She said: “To get anything growing at all is a real achievement, although it will be difficult to make the hair come back in the right way, pointing in the right direction, with the hair follicles lined up the right way.”

Dr Andrew Messenger, a consultant dermatologist at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, said that if new hair follicles had been produced, then it would constitute an advance.

However, he added: “We don’t yet know for certain whether these are new hair follicles, and it’s actually quite hard to prove that they are, not just the result of rubbing on the scalp or another effect.”

Do you have Hair Loss Problems, read our Hair Loss Help

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7431092.stm

Lab-grown cells "cure baldness"

Remaining hair cells are multiplied to fill bald areas Cells grown in the laboratory may offer a possible solution to hair loss, preliminary trials have suggested.

The technique involves taking small amounts of the remaining hair cells, multiplying them, then injecting them into bald areas.

Six months after treatment, 11 out of 19 patients had grown new hair, UK researchers told an Italian conference.

However, a UK specialist said further work would be needed so that the new hair looked right.

“It will revolutionise hair care, I think”

Dr Paul Kemp, Intercytex

Hair loss affects two-fifths of men over 50, and can be a long-term problem for some people following radiotherapy or burns.

Currently available methods of hair transplantation involve taking large clumps of remaining follicles under local anaesthetic and moving them to the desired area, a technique dependent on the amount of hair left, as no new hair is created.

The new method, called “follicular cell implantation”, developed by UK firm Intercytex, claims to be able to provide a limitless supply of replacement hair cells, and, if other trials show it to be safe and effective, could be available within five years.

Doctors take only the dermal papilla cells – cells found in the follicle which are responsible for hair growth.

They are harvested from areas on the back of the head, which usually still have hair growth, and then bathed in a specially-developed chemical in the laboratory, before being placed back into bald areas of the scalp.

The early results suggest that most patients appear to benefit after just a few months, although the numbers involved in the trial are relatively small.

Dr Paul Kemp, Intercytex’s Scientific Officer, said that the presence of the dermal papilla cells encouraged skin cells to start building a brand new hair follicle, or rejuvenated follicles which have stopped producing hair properly.

He said: “It will revolutionise hair care, I think. People will use this when they are starting to go bald – they’ll come and see us, we’ll take a few dermal papilla cells, grow them up in the lab, freeze most of them, and inject some.

“They can keep coming back as the balding process continues. I’m convinced it will work, it’s just a question of fine-tuning the technique.”

Other organs

He said that the same principles could one day be harnessed to grow replacement teeth, or other organs.

“Every hair is a tiny little organ, after all.”

Professor Val Randall, from the University of Bradford, said that the progress made was “exciting”.

She said: “To get anything growing at all is a real achievement, although it will be difficult to make the hair come back in the right way, pointing in the right direction, with the hair follicles lined up the right way.”

Dr Andrew Messenger, a consultant dermatologist at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, said that if new hair follicles had been produced, then it would constitute an advance.

However, he added: “We don’t yet know for certain whether these are new hair follicles, and it’s actually quite hard to prove that they are, not just the result of rubbing on the scalp or another effect.”

Do you have Hair Loss Problems, read our Hair Loss Help

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7431092.stm

NOW HAIR CLONING TO TREAT BALDNESS

If clumps of your hair suddenly start falling out due to a common form of premature baldness, please don’t fret – scientists have pioneered a treatment to clone hair.

According to them, the technique, known as follicular cell implantation, works by replicating remaining hair strands and it could eventually help bald people to regain a full head of their own hair, The Daily Telegraph reported.

In fact, the technique has the potential to re-grow a limitless supply of hair for individuals who have become bald during cancer treatment, from suffering severe burns, or the onset of age, the researchers said.

However, the treatment may require more than 1,000 tiny injections to produce that number of hairs in extensively bald patients, but it promises to be quicker and less invasive than current hair transplant techniques.

The procedure is being developed by Intercytex, a British company based in Manchester, which is among many competing to find a cure for hair loss — a condition which affects 40 per cent of men over 50.

Trial results have indicated that the cell therapy can increase hair count in at least two thirds of patients after six months, and four out of five if the scalp is stimulated beforehand through gentle abrasions which encourage growth.

The therapy could be made available to patients within five years, the researchers hoped.  

Do you have Hair Loss Problems, read our Hair Loss Help

Scientist confident of cancer treatment breakthrough

A researcher holds high hopes for cancer treatments without side-effects in the next decade. (AAP: Vera Devai, file photo)

The treatment of cancer can be a harrowing, painful and dispiriting process.

But a leading Australian researcher predicts that chemotherapy side-effects such as nausea and hair loss will become a thing of the past as scientists gain a greater understanding of the biology of cancer.

Associate Professor Nick Saunders from the Diamantina Institute at the University of Queensland says a breakthrough in the treatment of cancer is probably only a decade away.

“In the past decade we’ve made enormous advances I would say. Most of that has come from advances on the molecular sciences, mainly to do with genetic technology and computational biology,” he said.

“These advances have allowed us to identify specific defects within particular cancers.

“Ultimately these have provided information about drug targets. And so I think, at the moment, the tide is changing in our treatment of cancers.

“I think cancer’s become a disease that is considered treatable, but is also going to be associated with far less side-effects then we have traditionally associated with cancer therapies.”

He says the key to prescribing cancer medication free of side-effects, such as hair-loss and vomiting, is to pinpoint the defects of the disease.

“If you’re … presenting to your doctor and you’ve got hyper-tension for example, then we give you drugs which you take when you go home and they get your high blood pressure back in control,” he said.

“Your hair doesn’t fall out, you’re not hospitalised, you don’t get immune suppression and you gut lining isn’t destroyed by these drugs.

“The reason that is the case, is because we are able to very selectively target the defects in hyper-tensive patients to treat their disease.

“What I’m saying is, with the advances we’ve made in molecular science, it is now a reasonable proposition for us to aim to have similar affects in treating cancer.

“That is, if we know the defects selectively, then we can treat those patients without any nasty side-effects which are normally associated with cancers,” he added.

But he says that type of breakthrough is still a way off.

“What I don’t want is for people to start phoning their doctor tomorrow saying ‘I hear cancer’s been cured, what can you do for me?'” he said.

“We’ve made some very significant advances and I think that those advances are going to form the basis for very dramatic changes in the way that we treat many types of cancers.

“My aim and the aim of hundreds, maybe thousands of scientists around the world, is to try to improve outcomes in patients, but at the same time, do so with very few side-effects,” he said.

“If we make that our goal, and I think we’re making good strides towards it, I would be very optimistic of improved outcomes in a number of other types of cancer.”

Do you have Hair Loss Problems, read our Hair Loss Help