Apparently there is a promising new cure for baldness and it involves something very akin to cloning hair follicles! I was just sent an article from the New York Times about this and I was so happy when I read it I just had to post about it ASAP.

The method involves hair transplantation, but not with the traditional way of moving follicles from the neckline to the balding areas. Instead, follicles are harvested from the scalp and then grown and multiplied in a laboratory, so instead of ending up with the same amount of hair you had when you were balding, you actually end up with a full head of hair again! Even more importantly, this is looking extremely hopeful for the large number of women over the age of 50 who have significantly thinning hair and sufferers of alopecia areata, a devastating disease that be so severe that no hair will grow anywhere on the body at all.  Though the hair being grown now is apparently too fine to use as intended quite yet, the scientists involved are hopeful they will find a method to make the new hair more viable.

The real breakthrough in growing hair in the laboratory seems to have come when the scientists realized success relied on growing the the new follicles upside down! Now I have hard evidence when using my favorite way to tease my hubby during his “senior  moments”… insisting it’s because that bald spot on the back of his head is where his hair is growing the wrong way and taking up brain space.

Check out the entire exciting article at the New York Times.

Filed under: Angst