Biologists at several startups are applying the latest advances in genetic engineering to the age-old problem of baldness, creating new hair-forming cells that could restore a person’s ability to grow hair.
Some researchers tell MIT Technology Review they are using the techniques to grow human hair cells in their labs and even on animals. A startup called dNovo sent us a photograph of a mouse sprouting a dense clump of human hair—the result of a transplant of what the company says are human hair stem cells.
So is stem-cell technology going to cure baldness or become the next false hope? [Stemson CEO Geoff] Hamilton, who was invited to give the keynote at this year’s Global Hair Loss Summit, says he tried to emphasize that the company still has plenty of research ahead of it.
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“We have seen so many [people] come in and say they have a solution. That has happened a lot in hair, and so I have to address that,” he says. “We’re trying to project to the world that we are real scientists and that it’s risky to the point I can’t guarantee it’s going to work.”
