Hair Loss News

Aderans Research Institute, Inc., has just been issued a patent for their bioabsorbable scaffolds.  These scaffolds are used in hair cloning procedures to ensure that the cultured cells are kept in place in order for a new hair follicle to be formed.

The patent, number 7,198,641, which was initially filed on August 7, 2001 and has subsequently been revised, was finally issued on April 3, 2007.

According to the patient, the “bioabsorbable scaffolds are useful for the tissue engineering of new hair follicles and to methods for their manufacture and to methods of their use in creating new hair. More specifically it relates to new and useful bioabsorbable porous structures that have the correct architecture to facilitate culturing of the appropriate follicle progenitor cells and their development into normal, functional, hair-producing follicles. The invention also relates to methods of making and using bioabsorbable scaffolds to implant and grow new hair follicles in vitro and in vivo.”

These tiny scaffolds are essentially the key to being able to grow new hair follicles because without them the cells cannot be held together after being injected into the scalp.   New hair follicles get created in a specific process that results from the interaction between different cells.   If these cells cannot be held together in the same place by some mechanism, then they will simply disperse from the point of injection and no new hair follicle will be formed. 

The process for using the scaffolds to grow new hair follicles goes something like this:

Human hair follicles are dissected to obtain the dermal papilla, which are transferred to a culture flask containing culture media. After several weeks in culture, the dermal papilla cells multiply and grow over the surface of the cell culture flask. These cells are detached from the flask by treatment with an enzyme and concentrated by centrifugation.

The cells are then transferred, after re-suspension, by pipette into the scaffolds and the cell-seeded scaffolds placed in a culture flask with media for several days to allow the cells to adhere to the surfaces of the scaffolds. Culturing of the cell-seeded scaffolds is then continued in another flask of media with gentle stirring until the scaffolds are fully populated with cells.

Scaffolds that have been seeded are implanted into the scalp of a human experiencing hair loss. Over time, as new hair follicles are created, new hairs grow from the implants, and the scaffolds bioabsorb.