This is an article from earlier this year
According to an article in the Italian newspaper “La Corriere Della Sera”, two Italian plastic surgeons have created a process to create several hair follicles from one single hair follicle.
The surgeons, Prof. Pierluigi Santi and his colleague Prof. Edoardo Rapposio, claim that in about 12 days they can create ten to fifteen new growing hairs from one single hair follicle.
This technique has been attempted before where surgeons have taken a hair follicle and sliced it into two halves and both halves of the follicles have been able to successfully grow a new hair. However there have been problems with consistency with this type of procedure and it’s never been successfully marketed before.
In the latest attempt at this primitive form of hair cloning, the parts of the dissected hair follicle are soaked in a cell culture medium before being re-implanted into the scalp. It will be interesting to see what type of success this method yields. While it’s not hair cloning in its truest sense, if successful it could create hope for men who have very little hair for a conventional hair transplant.
The doctors plan on getting their procedure ISO certified and will be opening a clinic dedicated to performing this procedure in early 2008. Initially the treatment will be offered to burn victims like firefighters and later on it will be open to everyone else.
