Despite a rare confluence of commercial forces and scientific interest, generating new hair remains outside the realm of the possible. This could be changing, though — and not owing to new packaging of the same old medicines. From a report: Recently a series of scientific publications has explored advances that involve both stem-cell research and 3-D printing, with the goal of cloning a person’s actual hair and then inserting it into his or her scalp — in tremendous, unlimited quantities. “For a long time, we’ve been saying this is 10 years away,” says Robert Bernstein, a dermatologist in Manhattan who specializes in hair transplantation. “But now it actually might be less.” Of all the parts of the body to create in a lab, hair could seem like the simplest. It’s a strand of protein filaments wrapped around one another. Hair doesn’t have to “function” in the way of a liver or brain; it just has to sit around and grow and not fall out.

But hair is much more complex to make than many researchers initially expected. To produce a single, hardy strand, the body relies on thousands of stem cells called dermal papillae at the base of each hair follicle. Human scalps contain about 100,000 hair follicles, but their life spans are limited: As dermal papillae disappear over time, follicles “miniaturize” and become dormant. When a hair follicle goes dormant, it cannot be restored. […] The answer, then, lies in generating new hair. This science is progressing alongside the creation of other bodily structures in what is known as cell therapy, a promising area of medicine in which therapies are derived from a person’s own stem cells. Pancreatic cells could replace those that stopped producing insulin in people with type 1 diabetes. Immune cells could be used to attack tumors. Nerve cells could be used to repair spinal-cord injuries. And, of course, hair follicles could be used to cover hairless skin. Using cells from a person’s own body minimizes the risk that the immune system will reject the hair transplants. The ultimate goal among scientists is to create “hair farms,” as the entrepreneur Geoff Hamilton and others put it.

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Source: Slashdot – New Uses of Stem Cells and 3-D Printing Could Make Baldness Obsolete (For the Wealthy)