Hair Cloning
Dr. Elliott's idea for hair cloning, which was developed in 1998, is based on the fact that there are two types of stem cells which cause hairs to grow, those in the so-called bulge area about halfway up the hair shaft at the area of the sebaceous glands, and the other in the dermal papilla at the base of the hair. Dr. Elliott's concept is that by cloning both of these types of cells and then injecting a mixture of them into the scalp, normal full-size hairs will grow. If you use only one of these types of stem cells, the probability is that you will get stunted hairs. Based on this theory, in the year 2000, Dr. Elliott worked with Dr. Richard Dana, a prominent California research scientist, to explore the possibility of cloning hair. About 200 of Dr. Elliott's patients each donated a few hair follicles each morning to Dr. Dana's lab. These were dissected and an attempt was made to clone the stem cells, as mentioned above. In fact, it was possible to grow these cells in tissue culture, but only for about one week. This is because they are adult stem cells. Dr. Dana then genetically modified those cells, and then they were able to grow in tissue culture. Of course, it is not proper to inject genetically modified cells back into a human, so the experiment ended. Dr. Dana believes that it could be done using fetal stem cells, which ought to be able to grow in tissue culture without any genetic modification. What follows is the paper (click on PDF below) presented by Dr. Dana to the Hair and Wool Society, which describes the scientific experiments done. It is the belief of Dr. Elliott that functional hair cloning in large numbers is not a possibility any time in the near future.
