Cloning Leads To Breakthrough Baldness Treatments

Thanks to Dolly, pharmaceutical companies are actually cloning hair.

May 2010

Recently there have been some major breakthroughs in the field of hair replacement to restore natural looking locks.

Remember "Dolly" the cloned sheep? Believe it or not, her birth led to a new baldness treatment.

For years doctors have been transplanting hair. They harvest hair follicles from an area on the head where the hair is more plentiful -- usually at the back – and then transplant it to the thinning spots. If you're balding, there's little hair left to work with.

But now, thanks to Dolly, pharmaceutical companies are actually cloning hair.

"We would take probably three or four hairy follicular units, send that to the company and the company will make the clones for us and then we would transplant those clones back into the patient," Dr. Mizuguchi said.

Mizuguchi, the director of Manhattan's Hair Restoration Surgery Center, said they can make thousands of new hairs individually ready for transplantation.

"We do expect it to be on the market possibly within the next year or two," Dr. Richard Mizuguchi said.

Then there's mesotherapy, a series of injections of tiny doses of medication and vitamins proven to stimulate hair growth.

"It works especially with women," Dr. Alexander Kulick said.

Miskelina Aluotto was devastated when she started losing hair on the side and top of her head. Now after just a handful of mesotherapy treatments she has a full head of hair again.

"I love it. I love it. You feel alive. You feel younger," Aluotto said.

New advancements in wig and toupee technology can also make these good options.

"The secret to the most natural looking hair piece is less hair, not more hair," Joe Paris Sr.

Paris, known as the "Toupee King," has spent 40 years perfecting the design of toupees and wigs. His latest has a virtually undetectable hairline. Paris said it's constructed to look like it's growing right out of the scalp.

"It's like a frame around a picture. You got to create proper balance," Paris said.

The cost of one of these new hair pieces starts at about $1,500. Transplanting cloned hair is expected to cost upwards of $10,000.

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