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.
“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.”
