Researchers at Japan’s RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (annual budget: $760 million), where Dr. Takashi Tsuji runs one of the most advanced stem cell labs in the world, have developed a method to autonomously regenerate fully functional hair follicles and teeth from autologous tissue samples, and the method has been demonstrated in an animal model.
A company (Organ Technologies) has been formed to commercialise the technology in partnership with Japanese precision manufacturing giant Kyocera Corporation.
In the joint venture Kyocera will be developing the cell processing devices and RIKEN and Organ Technologies will be responsible for the stem cell culturing and manipulation, the production process, and implementation of the preclinical trials.
The treatment involves extracting a small number of hair follicles from a person’s donor scalp area and then isolating two specific types of cells from the follicle – papilla cells and epidermal cells from the bulge region.
These cells are then cultured, expanded, and combined to create a hair follicle “germ” or “follicular primordium.” Once the hair follicle germs are ready they are transported to a facility where they can be implanted back into a person’s scalp to grow hair permanently.
The results of the animal testing can be seen here; the regrowth rat responded well to treatment.
Because this method involves the creation of new dht-resistant hair follicles, any desired level of coverage and density can be achieved. Only a few square centimetres of donor skin would be required to generate a full NW0 level of coverage at any desired level of hairs per square centimetre.
Clinical trials begin this year in Japan, and pending approval by regulatory authorities the treatment will be commercially available in Japan in the year 2020.
You can find more detailed technical information by reading the following papers published by Dr. Tsuji.
This isn't theoretical or early stage tech; this is being developed and commercialised right now. The clinical trials are already underway in HUMANS in Kobe, Japan.
