Cloning: The Future's Answer ... Video Transcript

Participants

, Angela Christiano PhD, Animesh A. Sinha MD, PhD

Summary

Cloning is not just for sheep anymore. Those among you who struggle with hair loss may benefit from the brave new technology that created Dolly just eight years ago.

Webcast Transcript

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Welcome to our webcast. I'm David Folk Thomas. In 1996, a lamb named Dolly was cloned from the genetic material of another sheep, and if they can clone a lamb, why not some hair for balding heads? Cloning for hair loss is not an option yet, but current research is moving in that direction. How would hair cloning work, and how soon might it be an option for hair loss patients? Join us as we take an in-depth look at what the future of hair treatment might look like.

Joining me to take that in-depth look, on my left is Dr. Angela Christiano. She is an Associate Professor of Dermatology and Genetics at Columbia University, and to Angela's left is Dr. Animesh Sinha. He's an Assistant Professor in the Department of Dermatology at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and New York Hospital. Thank you both for joining us.

Now, Ani, let me start with you. What is the current state of the art in hair transplantation?

ANIMESH SINHA, MD, PhD: David, I think what's been exciting for dermatologists and their patients alike are the tremendous advances that have occurred over the last couple decades in hair transplantation surgery. You may all remember some strangers on the street or friends of our who had the old-fashioned plugs that were the horror stories from two or three decades ago. The science and the surgical techniques have evolved tremendously to single-graft transplants and micrografts that have allowed for much more natural redefinition of the hairline. So there is a tremendous advance, and with new biology and science coming about that Angela's going to come to, I think there is even more potential in the near future.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Angela, what exactly? We mentioned cloning of sheep, and now cloning of hair, so explain what that's all about.

ANGELA CHRISTIANO, PhD: Let's talk about definitions a little first. When we talk about cloning a sheep, we're not talking here about trying to recreate a whole person from a single hair follicle, so the challenge isn't nearly as great as it was to make an entire organism from one cell. Really, what we want to be able to do is nothing more than use your body's own cells to regenerate structures that have begun to atrophy or die. The technology, more broadly called tissue regeneration or cell engineering is being widely applied through many areas of medicine -- people trying to recreate vessels or to recreate cartilage or to get your body to do what it knows how to do, but which somehow over time has either been injured or lost the ability to do.

So the theory of hair follicle cloning, if you will, is very simple and elegant. It's simply to take a few hair follicle cells from your own scalp -- usually in the back -- or a donor area, and the theory would be to grow or cultivate large populations of cells in a laboratory, your own cells, and then to surgically reimplant those cells into the scalp into the front of the head.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Now, those cells, that's before they start growing the hair, or are you growing the hair in the lab?

ANGELA CHRISTIANO, PhD: One of the great limitations of hair biology is that we don't yet know how to grow a hair in a dish, and if we did we'd be in a lot better shape. But right now we have no good way to do that, so what we're really just hoping to do is to culture the important cells, the germinative cells, and then use those to reimplant into the scalp, and then to let nature take its course, to basically allow those cells to induce a brand-new hair follicle.

In theory, it's already been done.