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Science Technology

New Uses of Stem Cells and 3-D Printing Could Make Baldness Obsolete (For the Wealthy) (theatlantic.com) 91

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
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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New Uses of Stem Cells and 3-D Printing Could Make Baldness Obsolete (For the Wealthy) More

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

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  • implants (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bugs2squash ( 1132591 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @12:09PM (#58991578)
    In many ways an inert, synthetic implant might be better, doesn't need a monthy trim

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I've been bald for years and would rather just have a laser treatment to kill off the remaining follicles so that I don't need to shave the rest of my head anymore.

      • I've been bald for years and would rather just have a laser treatment to kill off the remaining follicles

        Then what is stopping you?

        Laser hair removal [wikipedia.org] has been available for 25 years.

        • Bill got caught lying 12-25 times repeatedly stating "Blood plasma is sterile" and then later that "The Chinese Govt does not directly censor Chinese citizens" and other absolute bullshit head-in-ass retard-level lies. You're not trustworthy.

          You are not a source of information that anyone should or even could trust, knowing your dishonest history. Sorry. That's what accountability means when you get caught lying repeatedly, over and over, even after directly corrected.

          You're a liar, Bill. Your hair probabl

  • Stem cells and 3D printing technology holds the possibility for curing for diabetes and other genetic diseases, growing organ tissue for pharmaceutical testing, generating life-saving tissue for burn victims or heart value replacements, but by all means... let's spend our resources developing this technology for hair replacement.

    • Re:Of all the possibilities (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Impy the Impiuos Imp ( 442658 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @12:28PM (#58991740) Journal

      Practicing on a profitable subject helps advance the technology.

      Next they should 3D print extra large replacement corpus cavernosa.

    • Stem cells and 3D printing technology holds the possibility for curing for diabetes and other genetic diseases, growing organ tissue for pharmaceutical testing, generating life-saving tissue for burn victims or heart value replacements, but by all means... let's spend our resources developing this technology for hair replacement.

      Yeah, we should never spend our effort in a new field doing something relatively easy that we might learn from.

      Instead, whenever we investigate something new, we should start with

    • Burn victims may also need their hair to be replaced.

    • I think starting with a low-danger luxury item driven by the rich is a great way to do basic research. If we knew how to do it and were building a manufacturing plant, that would be different.

  • Why point out the wealth? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jader3rd ( 2222716 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @12:16PM (#58991642)
    Many things are first sold to the wealthy. And then if they pay for it, economies of scale bring the price down. That's not some unpardonable sin.

    • Re: Why point out the wealth? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ModernGeek ( 601932 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @12:28PM (#58991736)

      Apparently having taxpayers take the risk is far more virtuous.

      • If taxpayers will all eventually benefit from this, then it is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to take the risk of funding research for it. The "shouldn't be subsidized by taxpayers" argument only works when the benefit is limited to a small subset of individuals who could otherwise afford to pay for it on their own. (And "all" taxpayers benefit because you don't know ahead of time if you're one of the ones who will go bald later in life.)

        (That is if you subscribe to the premise that baldness is a q

        • If taxpayers will all eventually benefit from this, then it is entirely appropriate for taxpayers to take the risk of funding research for it.

          If taxpayers might eventually benefit from this (if it works), then it may be appropriate for them to take the risk... but if you can get the wealthy to pay for the R&D and the clinical trials and testing, why not do that?

    • yes. cell phones were once for the wealthy.

      • yes. cell phones were once for the wealthy.

        So were cars and computers. In tech, trickle-down economics actually works. The rich are funding R&D for the rest of us.

        `Nothing has spread socialistic feeling in this country more than the use of automobiles ... they are a picture of the arrogance of wealth'' -- Woodrow Wilson

      • yes. cell phones were once for the wealthy.

        In the US, they were.

        In Europe, since the caller pays for the extra cost of the call, their indigent population were the first to get cell phones.

        Incidentally, because of that very same reason, European cell phones do not receive spam calls from bots.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by anegg ( 1390659 )

        Back in the day, the wealthy wore wigs. I say, embrace the shiny baldness; it's far cheaper and easier to maintain anyways. Some women think bald men are sexy too!

        That may be, but my experience is that (in general) a male with substantial hair loss is viewed as older and not necessarily wiser. Some bald guys have the aesthetics to carry off the "sexy" vibe, but not all. I have eschewed the medicated treatments because I don't want a recurring payment to block hair loss, but I would probably be vain enough to pay a fair amount for a more or less permanent "fix" that involved having natural hair again. In the meantime I wear a ball cap a lot.

  • I'll still die of Heart disease, but my hair will be great !!!

    Reading the article I don't see (or understand) the other applications of this. Is this easier to do, such that we learn something that can be applied to a future problem? Or is it only vanity?

    • Well, it's experimental so insurance won't cover it. So you get rich people to pay to restore their hair than forgo their quite good medical treatment covered by insurance to try something that may work better of may fuck up.

      It's safer, because the cost of your hair not working is pretty low.

      It doesn't trigger some religious people's objections because it's "only hair". Don't know how widespread that is.

      Baldness is probably more widespread among rich people than any given disease, so it has a wider pool o

  • ... is a sign of virility. In most cases, it's caused by high testosterone levels. And many men will go out of their way to adopt that look by shaving their heads.

    If you really want to keep your hair, consider becoming a eunuch. Or smoke a lot of pot.

  • (For the wealthy)

    All new drugs are for the wealthy -- And that's a good thing!

    They are costly to develop because of testing regulations. It is better to have the drug and it be expensive then to mandate it be cheap, and drug companies slack off on development.

    Because deaths due to delay compound year after year like interest, it's possible if not probable government regulations cost more deaths due to delay than they save due to (delaying) quality.

  • Whats with the "for the wealthy" nonsense. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday July 26, 2019 @12:29PM (#58991742)

    I am by no means a conservative nut job. However Experimental and novel treatments tend to be expensive. because the number of people who can do it (Supply) is very limited, while there is a high number of people (Demand) who wants it. So the process will be expensive for the time being.

    Also Cosmetic only treatments, tend to have little support (from all political sides) for tax payer funded, and would rather see the people pay out of pocket for such treatments, as to save tax and insurance invested money to go toward treating problems that have more of medical necessity. So this wouldn't be part of nearly any countries socialized healthcare system, nor will most commercial insurances cover the procedure.

    Now because this will be expensive, it wouldn't necessarily be only for the wealthy. Just like you see the guy who is making much less then you seem to be driving a fancy new sports car, while you drive a modest car. It is just that their priorities in life are different. So while they may have the sports car, they may have a smaller house, and/or are eating cheep noodles every night. So if someone who isn't wealthy but really wants this procedure can probably save up for it.

    • Socialists' envy knows no bounds. (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      That's why they even eat each other in the end.

      When the foundation of your philosophy is theft, your envy knows no bounds.

    • Also Cosmetic only treatments, tend to have little support (from all political sides) for tax payer funded, and would rather see the people pay out of pocket for such treatments

      This is why, over the last two decades, medical costs have soared far faster than inflation, while the inflation adjusted cost of cosmetic surgery has gone down.

      People shop around, price compare, and negotiate when they are spending their own money. This incentivizes cosmetic surgeons to control costs and improve efficiency.

      There is no inherent reason that non-cosmetic medical costs have soared, and consume an ever greater portion of our GDP, other than that someone else is paying the bill so there is no i

    • The Atlantic isn't known for its conservative [tomdwyer.com] views. Think MSNBC - only with a little more factually accurate reporting.

  • As time goes on, the first 15 minutes of that movie become more documentary than comedy.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's been around for years. The procedure takes tiny "plugs" of hair from the sides of the head where that hair doesn't die off due to DHT then they transplant those plugs (read: drill a hole and stuff the plug into it) on the top of the head. Then usually a lot of the hair dies, but whatever lives will put a thin patina of hair on a previously bald spot. Occasionally, the person is luck and the hair doesn't die. In those cases, they come out looking like Tom Cruise. The procedure is about $10,000 in most a

  • Could we give ourselves FUR? ... just asking

  • Hmmm.

    Which one is more handsome?

    I'm going with the Captain.

  • You will know gene editing is now more than just bullshit-in-the-news when you can get your bald spot genetically patched. They can talk all the CRISPR shit they want but folks are blowing smoke until that hits the street. I can't imagine too many things more profitable given that two out of three men will experience hair loss, even curing cancer. The same kinda thing is true of Artificial Intelligence. When your spell check starts working 100%, search engines nearly always get it right, and Siri can do mor
  • ever notice that you don't see a lot of bald guys over 65? That's because the things that make you bald (too much of the bad kind of testosterone) also make you dead. There are exceptions for sure, but it's a solid trend.

    Also, can't believe nobody brought up Captain Picard on a baldness thread, so:

    Q: If it's the future why can't they cure baldness?

    A: Because it's the future, and nobody cares :)

  • New xxx Could Make Baldness Obsolete (For the Wealthy)

    Substitute any of the following for "Baldness":
    unemployment, lack of housing, lack of healthcare, societal violence, fear of prosecution, incarceration, taxation, hunger ...

  • what's next?

    When are 3D printers going to be used to cure impotence?

  • 3D printers could be used to cure stupidity...

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