Your future hair regrowth may sprout inside a lab before finding a permanent home on top of your head. Groundbreaking research from Dr. Angela Christiano and her team at Columbia University are leveraging the latest advancements in 3D printing to build molds that support the growth of human hair follicles entirely in a lab setting. 

The process starts by covering the molds in skin to mimic the microenvironment for hair growth. After that, follicle cells are added and nurtured with advanced growth stimulators like JAK Inhibitors. Just three weeks later, human hair follicles appear and start creating hair.

“What we've shown is that we can basically create a hair farm: a grid of hairs that are patterned correctly and engineered so they can be transplanted back into that same patient's scalp,” Christiano says. 

“That expands the availability of hair restoration to all patients—including the 30 million women in the United States who experience hair thinning and young men whose hairlines are still receding. Hair restoration surgery would no longer be limited by the number of donor hairs.”

While this treatment is still in its initial stages of testing, the possibilities born from this innovation seem transformational for the hair loss industry at large, and for those suffering from loss. 

Sources: Columbia University; New Atlas; Technology Marketing Corporation