Strides have been made to deal with baldness and thinning hair. One of the more popular methods of hair transplants is where hair follicles are moved from one area of the scalp, for example the back area and transplanted to bald areas so that they are covered with hair. New research is geared towards developing methods where the hair follicles that are transplanted grow to give rise to new hair. This is an improvement on hair transplants so that instead of hair follicles just being transplanted, the hair cells will actually be bale to grow hair. This is known as cell therapy.

In cell therapy, cells are taken from the head, they are isolated and grown in a culture and then they are transplanted onto the bald areas when they are grown enough. This will lead to more permanent results for people who suffer from baldness. This is because once the cells are transplanted on to the bald areas, the hair will grow. Cells are living organisms and this means that once the hair cells are transplanted, they will continue to produce hair follicles.

This exciting research also has the potential to help numerous people who need hair transplants. This is because numerous cells can be grown from few cells. This means that one hair follicle can be used to create many other follicles that can be used by many other people. This cell based method of treating hair loss is more efficient as compared to the current way hair transplants are done.

Hair follicles are grown from the epithelial and mesenchymal cells. Scientists combined these two types of cells to make hair follicles which they then transplanted on hairless mice. The hair follicles were found to look just like the normal hair and the engineered follicles work just like the natural follicles. The engineered follicles grow and then shed just like normal hair and once they have been transplanted, they integrate with the nerves and muscle around them. One of the biggest steps with the research is that the researchers guided the direction the hair grew to prevent it from becoming ingrown. They did this by using a nylon thread to guide the engineered hair follicles in the way they should go.

The research is still being carried out to deal with a few issues such as ensuring that the hair follicles that are transplanted grow in the same manner and direction as the natural hair. This will ensure that the transplant results look similar to the natural hair. Another interesting discovery is that Bimatoprost, which is a drug used to treat glaucoma causes human hair to grow in bald areas. Preliminary research shows that once bimatoprost was applied to bald skin or put in a culture where hair follicles were growing, the hair follicles in the culture and hair on the bald spots began to grow. The relationship between the drug and hair growth has not yet been discovered but research is being carried out to understand why Bimatoprost causes hair to grow.

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