Dr. Marc Dauer -- Spencer's recent guest -- Hair Cloning 20-30 years away

[hairy]

http://www.mdnewhair.com/blog/

"The good news is that extensive research is being performed on ways to clone hair in the lab and we could see hair cloning in practice in perhaps 20-30 years."


Is this guy saying that in order to get the people on the fence to get an HT? Or does he truly believe it?

[bananana]

In 20-30 years we'll have super computers the size of a zit and nano robots running around in our body killing everything bad for us. Including dht.

We'll have a solution soon. Far before "20-30 years".

[thechamp]

It's easy to say we will have a solution sooner than 30 years,but I have been fighting hairloss 7 years in this time nothing much had changed on these forums, there's nothing new to get excited about.

[Scientalk56]

the man is being realistic.. and he's talking about hair cloning not Histogen or Follica..
Every good dermatologist I ask about when we could see a future hair treatment tells me that it wont be any treatment before 2020..
yes, there will be very good treatments in the future, but not the near future..

[Vox]

Is this guy saying that in order to get the people on the fence to get an HT? Or does he truly believe it?

He is a surgeon, so he has every interest to make people believe that hair cloning is still far away.

On the other hand, his estimation is not unreasonable. He talks about cloning used in practice, like a routine procedure. Given that this kind of procedure is still in its infancy (Tsuji labs - Lauster) we would need, as it has already been pointed out in this forum, at least a ten years period before having something thoroughly tested for safety and efficiency. And this if everything goes OK. Give it some more years to become widespread and you easily hit the 20 years mark.

However, another solution revitalizing existing dormant hair follicles in bald scalp (in the same line as Histogen, Follica, etc,) might come before. But this would not be hair cloning.

[garethbale]

He's probably quite clued up though of course he is just speculating. I was in communication with a top HT surgeon and he suggested there would be a good solution (not necessarily cloning) in the next ten years. He also said it would not make HT doctors redundant as skilled surgeons would be needed to achieve cosmetic results.

[x4342]

http://www.mdnewhair.com/blog/

"The good news is that extensive research is being performed on ways to clone hair in the lab and we could see hair cloning in practice in perhaps 20-30 years."


Is this guy saying that in order to get the people on the fence to get an HT? Or does he truly believe it?

Obviously it's a bit of both. People tend to truly believe what they want to believe. It's no different than someone's political persuasion. There are plenty of people who really believe the primary problem with their country is conservatives/liberals.

Personally I'd argue that the primary issue isn't whether or not he's right, but rather why anyone would value his opinion. One of my brothers went the PHD route and does a lot of work that in what would be considered both regenerative medicine and medical genetics. He works on the computational side and does a lot of consulting with companies that are working on some pretty impressive stuff. A hair transplant surgeon is a skilled artist. The vast majority of them aren't moonlighting as regenerative medicine professors and aren't remotely qualified to answer these sorts of questions. The analogy I used before would be asking a dentist about regenerating teeth. Dentists are good a filling cavities, not answering questions of regenerative medicine.


As for his bias, it's most clearly seen in how he envisages "hair transplants" continuing almost indefinitely. You'll notice that with a lot of transplant surgeons. It's one thing to think that there won't be any "cloning" for ~25 years, but it's another when you act as if even then it will still be fundamentally a transplant. They don't even consider the possibility that it may one day be possible to revive long dormant follicles, re-germinate the scalp or even create new follicles. Nope, they simply see this:
0-25 years: Standard transplant.
25+ years: Transplants, but with unlimited donor hair.

Look at the rest of his comment:
"This will truly revolutionize hair transplant procedures as we will no longer have limitations on a patient’s supply of donor hair, and with unlimited donor hair the options will be limitless."

Compare that to someone like William Lindsey. Lindsey also sees nothing any time soon:

"I'm still betting that I'll be retired before hair cloning is an option for the average consumer."


But again, the obvious bias comes out not with his initial prediction, but his view that even far in the future, it will simply be a variation of a hair transplant:


"As to whether docs would resist....I think that is a non question. I'd offer it tomorrow if an unlimited supply of hair could be ordered by a patient. A highly skilled placement team would still be required. The "cost" of a dissection team and their instruments would be eliminated, but I would expect total graft count to go WAY up as there would be as much hair as the patient wanted to buy. Then prices would be dictated only by the number of grafts to be placed, and the skill level of the placement team and doctor.



I'm not trying to vent but this is why I say that part of the problem is that people conflate "hair transplant surgeon" with "expert on restoring hair."

[TO YOUNG TO RETIRE]

nigam?

[bananana]

nigam?

Yeah, I believe in him, but most of the guys here remain sceptical till proven otherwise.

[TO YOUNG TO RETIRE]

lets just all wait untis toms case evolve regarding growth density and general result in detail.

then we can alos check his high norwood results which have not grown yet to a final stage, and then if we get dissapointed we can all come here and cry about aderans and cloning becoming available after a century...


aint that ok?

[StuckInARut]

Sorry I don't follow all these new potential methods but seriously 20-30 years to clone human hairs? Scientists have been cloning whole animals since the 1950's and still unable to clone a simple follicle? That's sad...

[BoSox]

Why is everybody throwing around dates?

Who the **** knows? This forum is officially dead to me, I'm going to continue to be optimistic and patient for Follica to cure us. Have a good life people.

[Javert]

Why is everybody throwing around dates?

Who the **** knows? This forum is officially dead to me, I'm going to continue to be optimistic and patient for Follica to cure us. Have a good life people.

Haha

[25 going on 65]

The big theme of hair loss treatment breakthroughs for the last 15 (20? 25?) years: everything is taking much longer than we expected.

Maybe he is wrong about it being 20-30 years off. Maybe he is right. The message to take away from this and from everything that has happened since people in the 90s were saying "hair multiplication is 5 years away," is that if you are losing your hair now, you need a viable treatment plan using what is available today.

Waiting around for the big breakthrough? Look at the guy who made that choice in 1997 when he was on the fence about Propecia/minox. He was 23 and NW2 then, now he is almost 40 and NW7. Still waiting around for the next big thing when he could have spent his 20s and maybe even his 30s with a decent head of hair.

If your hair loss attack plan revolves around something that you can not buy today, you are very likely shooting yourself in the foot

[clandestine]

And what of those sorry few who experience sides on Propecia, 25? We would hope to be entirely proactive, but lack the tools to do so.

What are they to do?