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Guys, I was thinking about an idea for quite some weeks now. We all know a commercial cure is at least 10 years away. So I had some thoughts on how to bridge the time.
Hair transplants are one thing of course, but they are very limited without donor regeneration. Pilofocus may be some nice development, but its positive outcome is still unsure.
So I was thinking about the following, and would like to hear your opinions.
Maybe it’s total BS and the worst hairloss idea ever and infeasible at all, but I can’t stop thinking why this shouldn’t work. I see a way that this could work a give us some nice looks back.
If you want to introduce something into the body (implant something), it reacts on it, because it sees a wound and wants to close it. If it’s not your own cells, normally it get’s rejected. Now there are some biomaterials and metals which are well tolerated by the body and not rejected (titanium screws, biodegradable adhesives to close wounds, different coating materials etc.). They are widely used in the medical field. Some of you maybe heard about artificial trachea implants, which are made of plastic (also 3D printed) and to avoid rejection they have to coat those implants with your own cells to let your body think it’s your own part. If you now introduce an implant (made of plastics or whatever) which is coated with your own cells, your body doesn’t see it as hazard and accepts the implant. The body just thinks everything is ok and doesn’t treat it as wound or foreign object, thus there are no adverse reactions, inflammations etc.
Now, the basic idea is to implant fully grown donor hair shafts which are grown to a few cm length but of course can’t grow any further because they are no functional organs. I’m simply talking about donor hair which you let grow to a few cm, and then cut it to implant them into the recipient (with special preparation). It’s all your own hair, fully natural look, and also relatively cheap and easy if we can turn that theory into reality. If we could find a way to anchor those cut hair shafts into the scalp permanently (or at least for some months or a few years) without any inflammatory response then this would be a nice semi-cure in my opinion, which is by far superior to wigs, biofibre crap and other hair systems. But this can’t be done without some additional medical tricks which I’m trying to elaborate now.
What would happen if you try to implant a hair shaft (only the previously cut shaft, no bulb and no root) into an incision, like a normal FUE implanting procedure?
Problem 1: You can’t anchor the hair shaft into the scalp. It has no root and probably no rough surface to attach to the scalp. Maybe the resulting scab of that incision will hold the hair in place for some hours, and then fall out again.
Problem 2: In my opinion the body sees the hair as a foreign object (even if it’s your own hair) because there is no real cell-based connection anymore. So the body will close the wound with a scab and during that procedure the hair gets naturally pushed out of the scalp.
Problem 3: Even if the hair shaft is not seen as foreign object and finds some attachment to the wounded skin inside the incision, then we’re still talking of a permanently open wound which will never be closed. The body will always see it as an open wound and therefore you would always be facing inflammatory responses and also infections would be very likely. That’s also the reason why biofibres don’t work good enough. Biofibres are also coated with some anti-inflammatory material but once a biofibre is implanted, you always have an open wound which leads to problems from time to time. In most countries they are illegal anyway. Just wanted to give a comparison.
Only if we can eliminate those 3 problems it would be a feasible solution. So what about that (see attached graphic to get an idea).
Step 1: let your donor hair grow as long as you want (3 to 5 cm or even longer).
Step 2: cut your donor hair and put it in a bag. (no special care required)
Step 3: A lab comes into the game now. The donor hair get’s washed and disinfected. Now, a special coating has to be applied to the tip of each single hair (this can be automated if the technique is perfected). The coating only acts as a rough base and adhesive agent to give your own cells a good grip for the next step. The coating has to be biocompatible (there are probably quite some materials which are suited for that, and used in the medical field for many years).
Step 4: Your own skin cells (multiplied in a lab from a previous extracted skin sample) should be ready now to settle down on the special coating of each hair. There is no special requirement for the multiplied skin cells. No gene expression problems and whatever. Just multiply them in a dish in millions, from only a small skin sample (something that probably can even be done by some biology students because it should be a simple procedure nowadays). Once the skin cells settled down on the hair shaft tips and created a full coating, the hair is ready for implantation. This whole cell population procedure will probably take some days, and could be automatized so that the procedure isn’t that expensive.
Step 5: You have a donor hair shaft now, coated with your own cells. Now, make an incision into the scalp (like FUE) and implant it. The body won’t interprete the hair shaft as foreign object now as it is coated with your own cells. The cells will attach to each other, and the wound is practically closed then. The body won’t try to push the hair out or fight against it, because job (close wound) is already done. So, if we could work out a coating material which permanently (or at least for some months or even some years) gives the skin cells a good grip and holds the hair shaft in its place (acting like an adhesive for the cells) then we could create a nice illusion of real hair which isn’t different to natural grown hair at all. The only difference is: The hair doesn’t grow. It always has a fixed length (like with every other hair system, too). But as the wound is closed there is also no inflammation or infection problem. It’s a sealed wound.
If done correctly, I think, such an implanted hair could stay for at least one year inside the scalp and even longer. I don’t think it can stay there forever because it loses its attachment after some time. If I recall correctly, then the skin regenerates itself from time to time (but very slowly) which means that the implanted hairs would be pushed out after some time in a natural way (unless they are anchored very deep).
So, the next question is about implantation depth: Generally, you could implant the hair in the same depth like with normal FUE, this would be 4 to 5mm depth then. However, I still see a chance that something like only 2mm depth would do the job, too. So you wouldn’t create much trauma to the deeper lying dermis, especially if you would have to renew the implants every year for example. As the outer skin (epidermis) tends to regenerate itself, you wouldn‘t create much damage to the skin, even if you would have to renew the implants on an annual basis. Further, you wouldn’t create much scar tissue in the deeper skin, so that you keep yourself still ready for future hair cloning treatments and don’t mess up your scalp.
Also, an important detail: as the hairs don’t carry additional skin tissue like known from FUE extractions, the used needles for implantation could be much thinner now. About 0.3mm or so (compared to 0.6 to 0.8mm). Much less trauma and almost no redness would be the result, which means very fast healing time, and minimal scar tissue. Redness would probably dissapear after 1 or 2 weeks, and scabs aren’t even visible.
What happens, when the hair falls out or gets pulled out? The small groove will be closed by the body in very short time. The same happens, when you remove an earring for a long time. The pierced hole in the ear gets closed by the body as the skin cells (formerly a complete closed wound) are always in close contact with each other.
All in all, I think such a procedure, if perfected, could even bring a NW7 back to life, with nice density.
If the hair coating technique with special base material and your own cells could be automated and standardized, then this procedure could be relatively cheap.
What do you think, guys? Did I miss something? Is there any reason why this isn’t feasible?
If we only could find a researcher to discuss that idea, and try it out, with just one single hair. Just see what happens after implantation, and for how long the hair stays in the scalp. I would be glad to be the guinea pig if someone could find my a researcher like Dr. Xu or some other respected guy who is able to expand skin cells and populate them on a hair shaft.
That’s also an experiment which would be ideal for a crowdfunding campain.
Feel free to tell me if you think this idea is total BS and infeasible at all.
Hair transplants are one thing of course, but they are very limited without donor regeneration. Pilofocus may be some nice development, but its positive outcome is still unsure.
So I was thinking about the following, and would like to hear your opinions.
Maybe it’s total BS and the worst hairloss idea ever and infeasible at all, but I can’t stop thinking why this shouldn’t work. I see a way that this could work a give us some nice looks back.
If you want to introduce something into the body (implant something), it reacts on it, because it sees a wound and wants to close it. If it’s not your own cells, normally it get’s rejected. Now there are some biomaterials and metals which are well tolerated by the body and not rejected (titanium screws, biodegradable adhesives to close wounds, different coating materials etc.). They are widely used in the medical field. Some of you maybe heard about artificial trachea implants, which are made of plastic (also 3D printed) and to avoid rejection they have to coat those implants with your own cells to let your body think it’s your own part. If you now introduce an implant (made of plastics or whatever) which is coated with your own cells, your body doesn’t see it as hazard and accepts the implant. The body just thinks everything is ok and doesn’t treat it as wound or foreign object, thus there are no adverse reactions, inflammations etc.
Now, the basic idea is to implant fully grown donor hair shafts which are grown to a few cm length but of course can’t grow any further because they are no functional organs. I’m simply talking about donor hair which you let grow to a few cm, and then cut it to implant them into the recipient (with special preparation). It’s all your own hair, fully natural look, and also relatively cheap and easy if we can turn that theory into reality. If we could find a way to anchor those cut hair shafts into the scalp permanently (or at least for some months or a few years) without any inflammatory response then this would be a nice semi-cure in my opinion, which is by far superior to wigs, biofibre crap and other hair systems. But this can’t be done without some additional medical tricks which I’m trying to elaborate now.
What would happen if you try to implant a hair shaft (only the previously cut shaft, no bulb and no root) into an incision, like a normal FUE implanting procedure?
Problem 1: You can’t anchor the hair shaft into the scalp. It has no root and probably no rough surface to attach to the scalp. Maybe the resulting scab of that incision will hold the hair in place for some hours, and then fall out again.
Problem 2: In my opinion the body sees the hair as a foreign object (even if it’s your own hair) because there is no real cell-based connection anymore. So the body will close the wound with a scab and during that procedure the hair gets naturally pushed out of the scalp.
Problem 3: Even if the hair shaft is not seen as foreign object and finds some attachment to the wounded skin inside the incision, then we’re still talking of a permanently open wound which will never be closed. The body will always see it as an open wound and therefore you would always be facing inflammatory responses and also infections would be very likely. That’s also the reason why biofibres don’t work good enough. Biofibres are also coated with some anti-inflammatory material but once a biofibre is implanted, you always have an open wound which leads to problems from time to time. In most countries they are illegal anyway. Just wanted to give a comparison.
Only if we can eliminate those 3 problems it would be a feasible solution. So what about that (see attached graphic to get an idea).
Step 1: let your donor hair grow as long as you want (3 to 5 cm or even longer).
Step 2: cut your donor hair and put it in a bag. (no special care required)
Step 3: A lab comes into the game now. The donor hair get’s washed and disinfected. Now, a special coating has to be applied to the tip of each single hair (this can be automated if the technique is perfected). The coating only acts as a rough base and adhesive agent to give your own cells a good grip for the next step. The coating has to be biocompatible (there are probably quite some materials which are suited for that, and used in the medical field for many years).
Step 4: Your own skin cells (multiplied in a lab from a previous extracted skin sample) should be ready now to settle down on the special coating of each hair. There is no special requirement for the multiplied skin cells. No gene expression problems and whatever. Just multiply them in a dish in millions, from only a small skin sample (something that probably can even be done by some biology students because it should be a simple procedure nowadays). Once the skin cells settled down on the hair shaft tips and created a full coating, the hair is ready for implantation. This whole cell population procedure will probably take some days, and could be automatized so that the procedure isn’t that expensive.
Step 5: You have a donor hair shaft now, coated with your own cells. Now, make an incision into the scalp (like FUE) and implant it. The body won’t interprete the hair shaft as foreign object now as it is coated with your own cells. The cells will attach to each other, and the wound is practically closed then. The body won’t try to push the hair out or fight against it, because job (close wound) is already done. So, if we could work out a coating material which permanently (or at least for some months or even some years) gives the skin cells a good grip and holds the hair shaft in its place (acting like an adhesive for the cells) then we could create a nice illusion of real hair which isn’t different to natural grown hair at all. The only difference is: The hair doesn’t grow. It always has a fixed length (like with every other hair system, too). But as the wound is closed there is also no inflammation or infection problem. It’s a sealed wound.
If done correctly, I think, such an implanted hair could stay for at least one year inside the scalp and even longer. I don’t think it can stay there forever because it loses its attachment after some time. If I recall correctly, then the skin regenerates itself from time to time (but very slowly) which means that the implanted hairs would be pushed out after some time in a natural way (unless they are anchored very deep).
So, the next question is about implantation depth: Generally, you could implant the hair in the same depth like with normal FUE, this would be 4 to 5mm depth then. However, I still see a chance that something like only 2mm depth would do the job, too. So you wouldn’t create much trauma to the deeper lying dermis, especially if you would have to renew the implants every year for example. As the outer skin (epidermis) tends to regenerate itself, you wouldn‘t create much damage to the skin, even if you would have to renew the implants on an annual basis. Further, you wouldn’t create much scar tissue in the deeper skin, so that you keep yourself still ready for future hair cloning treatments and don’t mess up your scalp.
Also, an important detail: as the hairs don’t carry additional skin tissue like known from FUE extractions, the used needles for implantation could be much thinner now. About 0.3mm or so (compared to 0.6 to 0.8mm). Much less trauma and almost no redness would be the result, which means very fast healing time, and minimal scar tissue. Redness would probably dissapear after 1 or 2 weeks, and scabs aren’t even visible.
What happens, when the hair falls out or gets pulled out? The small groove will be closed by the body in very short time. The same happens, when you remove an earring for a long time. The pierced hole in the ear gets closed by the body as the skin cells (formerly a complete closed wound) are always in close contact with each other.
All in all, I think such a procedure, if perfected, could even bring a NW7 back to life, with nice density.
If the hair coating technique with special base material and your own cells could be automated and standardized, then this procedure could be relatively cheap.
What do you think, guys? Did I miss something? Is there any reason why this isn’t feasible?
If we only could find a researcher to discuss that idea, and try it out, with just one single hair. Just see what happens after implantation, and for how long the hair stays in the scalp. I would be glad to be the guinea pig if someone could find my a researcher like Dr. Xu or some other respected guy who is able to expand skin cells and populate them on a hair shaft.
That’s also an experiment which would be ideal for a crowdfunding campain.
Feel free to tell me if you think this idea is total BS and infeasible at all.
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