HairClone in Action, Scar Prevention: Weekly Thoughts 2/4/17

Hello everyone,

Welcome to another edition of Weekly Thoughts. I’ve been looking for some significant info to share with you all and today I came across just that. I expect this news to create quite a positive ripple in the hair enthusiast crowd. Let’s see what’s going on.

HairClone Begins

Dr. Bessam Farjo tweeted this photo today:


Exciting 2017 indeed.

For those unaware, Dr. Farjo is is one of the founding clinical partners of HairClone, a company developing a cellular based hair regeneration treatment. In this tweet he tagged @HigginsBioeng which is the Twitter account of Dr. Claire Higgins’ lab. Apparently the entire team has been working diligently and they are moving things forward. CEO of HairClone Paul Kemp recently told me they will be providing an update on their work soon.

Dr. Farjo also added on Twitter “(we are) Not trialing yet @HairClone, but doing investigative clinical work in preparation.”

For those who have been asking lately if HairClone could begin treatments this year (2nd half 2017) and how this would be possible please refer to this article A New Approach to Solving Hair Loss: HairClone. The company continues to seek funding to continue their plan of development.

New Plikus/Cotsarelis Research

A scientific paper was recently published on the role that hair follicles could play in preventing scar formation. The team responsible for the paper was quite large and included two familiar names: Maksim Plikus of the University of California at Irvine and Dr. George Cotsarelis of the University of Pennsylvania.

The team of researchers discovered that in order for fat cells to regenerate in a wound, there needed to be hair follicles present first. Scar tissue, which is normally devoid of both hair follicles and fat cells, forms from wounds. When hair follicles are added to a wound environment, the hair follicles naturally recruit fat cells. The presence of fat cells or ‘adipocytes’ in a wound environment promotes normal tissue regeneration instead of scar tissue.

This article does a great job of breaking it all down, and here is the original article from Science Magazine. I wonder how this research could be applied to the use of scar prevention during hair transplant surgeries.

Until next time, be well.

16 Comments

  1. guest on February 4, 2017 at 1:16 pm

    Thank you Admin! Wonderful news



    • Follicle Thought on February 4, 2017 at 4:07 pm

      You’re welcome friend!



  2. Peter on February 4, 2017 at 1:50 pm

    Keep it coming guys. Never Never ever lose sight of how life changing this will be for many millions of people. Baldness in those that can’t and won’t accept it, is an insidious cancer that eats at every single aspect of life. Let’s get the race into top gear now. It’s been ” just around the corner ” for decades now.
    Please don’t let me think the only people looking for a cure are the monthly repeat business model sharks.



    • Follicle Thought on February 4, 2017 at 2:32 pm

      Keep good faith Peter.



  3. Louis Samuels on February 5, 2017 at 3:06 pm

    Hello admin. When HairClone will be available? What will be the price?
    Thanks.



    • Follicle Thought on February 5, 2017 at 3:09 pm

      Hi Louis,
      We don’t know yet.



  4. Matt on February 5, 2017 at 8:10 pm

    It is exciting to see all the different solutions progressing these days. Is there anything being made commercially available in 2017 worth reviewing. 2018 looks much more promising…



  5. Beth on February 7, 2017 at 1:03 am

    Hi Joseph,
    Thank you for this. You continue to wow!
    I just hope they truly pursue hair cloning, not just the storing of hair follicles or whatever for future use. They would make mega amounts of money, just like in the 1990s, when parents paid hundreds to store cord blood from umbilical cords.
    Call me cynical, but if they start with a focus of storing hair follicles ( or whatever they store) for future use, prior to cloning technology coming to fruition, I think we should call them out majorly.



    • Follicle Thought on February 7, 2017 at 6:42 pm

      Hey Beth,

      Thanks For the kind words. I have good faith in what HairClone is doing and believe they should get best regards from the supporters.



  6. Jeff on February 8, 2017 at 6:07 pm


    • Follicle Thought on February 8, 2017 at 6:32 pm

      Thanks Jeff!



  7. guest on February 18, 2017 at 4:51 pm

    Admin, when is your opinion on Binaural Beats? e.g. these ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3Zv8NnhVFs?

    I read in your post on HairCell about the Body Electric book.

    Commentators talk about goosebumps, stress reduction, blood flow, ability to concentrate and visualize positive thoughts to use the power of brain.

    Follicle Thoughts is the most open to these aspects 🙂



  8. Bruck on February 18, 2017 at 8:27 pm

    Thank you Dr. Cotsarelis and Dr. Plikus. This research, supported by the Universities of Penn. and California, may lead to other businesses and researchers trying to find a better way to make hair follicles, including on the scalp, group back. There is very big money for products that may succeed in improving the skin and scalp.
    “Essentially, we can manipulate wound healing so that it leads to skin regeneration rather than scarring,” said George Cotsarelis, MD, the chair of the Department of Dermatology and the Milton Bixler Hartzell Professor of Dermatology at Penn, and the principal investigator of the project. “The secret is to regenerate hair follicles first. After that, the fat will regenerate in response to the signals from those follicles.”



  9. Dave Kelly on May 5, 2017 at 9:40 am

    Hi Prof Cotsarelis .
    I love your work ,This break through gives me great hope for recovery. I suffer from Rosacea and I had one vbeam laser treatment in October 2015 which left me with 3 indentations ( Fat loss ) .Basically the laser melted the fat underneath the skin , but left no scars ,The only treatments available at present to create volume in those area are fillers or fat transfer , both of these are high risk , and could make things a lot worse .
    This is BMP4 Gene therapy?
    How long are we talking about before this would become available.
    Thousands of laser damaged victims like me out there crying out for a new treatment to fix their problem (Fat loss) .



    • Follicle Thought on May 5, 2017 at 9:42 am

      Dave, I don’t think Dr. Cots checks these comments. You’d probably have a better chance emailing any of the other authors from that research paper, Dr. Cots is busy sometimes.



      • Dave Kelly on May 5, 2017 at 2:28 pm

        Thanks , much appreciated



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