You didn’t read the title wrong: Scientists are growing human hair in rodents to transplant into people with baldness. The idea comes from a startup called dNovo, which produces the components of hair follicles by genetically “reprogramming” common cells such as blood or fat cells.
In an interview with MIT Technology Review, founder Ernesto Lujan stated that the company can convert any cell directly into a hair stem cell by changing the patterns of the genes active in it.
The startup’s idea, basically, is to collect common cells (such as skin cells from patients) and then convert them into those responsible for forming hair. dNovo even sent the MIT team an image of what the mouse looks like after undergoing the experiment:
Want to stay on top of the best tech news of the day? Access and subscribe to our new youtube channel, Kenyannews News. Every day a summary of the main news from the tech world for you!
However, the technique arouses hesitation and skepticism on the part of experts in the field. “I think people go to great lengths to get their hair back. But at first, it will be a very expensive process”, estimates Karl Koehler, a professor at Harvard University.
In his opinion, images of mice with human hair are not new, and there is often “a trick and some downside to translating it to humans.” Koehler’s lab produces hair in an entirely different way: by growing organoids, which are tiny bubbles of cells His idea was originally to grow cells similar to ear hairs, with the intention of treating deafness.
In November, Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell biologist at UC Davis, did an article alleging that these companies are bringing high-tech biology to an industry known for delusions, entitled to many false claims about hair loss drugs and the potential of stem cells: “It is necessary to be aware of fraud”, he warned.
