Giant strides to prevent and cure baldness are being made in medical labs worldwide.
The latest announcement comes from Japan’s largest research organization RIKEN, that has teamed up with two Japanese companies, They are not the only ones going down the regeneration route. Earlier this year, scientists at SanfordBurham Medical Research Institute in California, for instance, made a similar announcement citing similar methods.
While in the United States, in Japan some 18 million people suffer from hair loss, it is more than three times that number men outnumbering females by more than two to one. Depending on the cost and new effectiveness treatment, there should be no lack of patients. Fact, conventional method of hair transplantation treatment compared to proposed follicular regenerative method. Source.
Though effective hair transplants have been around for some years, they are really just a method of moving hair from an area of plenty to one of absence.
They do nothing to stop further shedding. Basically the follicular regenerative method, additionally, requires only a tiny quantity of skin and a small number of hair follicles and promises continued hair growth. Although, hormones can impact the cycle, as can the health and aging. Until now, if a follicle suffered damage, that was it.
Hair follicles are cells sheaths and tissues that surround the roots of our hair, providing it with nourishment. With our exception skin, hair follicles are the only organ we know of that regenerates themselves repeatedly after birth thanks to work of the stem the work cells associated with them. Hair will continue to grow out of a follicle for between 3 to 7 years. I know that the follicle then goes into hibernation and sheds the hair. Andbasically the cycle begins again, after a couple of months it awakens. To make the method work as a commercial business will require highprecision bioengineering skills and devices. Electronics and ceramics maker Kyocera will use its ‘knowhow’ in devices and artificial joints to produce the equipment necessary, and it will work with Organ Technologies in the cultured processing stem cells into hair follicles, that will then be returned to the medical institute that provided the original tissue and cells.
The researchers at RIKEN, led by Takashi Tsuji, have already demonstrated they can regenerate body parts including teeth, certain glands and hair follicles in mice in a process known as the primordium method.
The magic ingredient employed is stem cells. From at least the ancient time Egyptians, humans have sort to restore hair growth. Methods ranging from the bizarre, such as covering the scalp with animal excrement, to dangerous drinking potions made by quacks, and everything in between, have been tried and failed. Eventually, it seems, baldness is about to become as quaint as snake oil.
as the new hair restorative method, follicular regenerative medicine is called, works by removing a small patch of skin and hair follicles from the patient’s scalp. It’s a well-known fact that the stem cells active in the follicles are isolated and extracted and after that, consequently cultivated to increase their number by many orders of magnitude. These cells are subsequently processed and turned into follicles using Tsuji’s primordium method and after that, hereafter injected or autografted onto the patient’s scalp.
As the new hair restorative method, follicular regenerative medicine is called, works by removing a small patch of skin and hair follicles from the patient’s scalp. So stem cells active in the follicles are isolated and extracted and soafter that, cultivated to increase their number by many orders of magnitude. These cells are subsequently processed and turned into follicles using Tsuji’s primordium method and after that, hereafter injected or autografted onto the patient’s scalp.
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