However, according to Angela M. Christiano, PhD, from Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), about 90 percent of women with hair loss are not strong candidates for hair transplantation surgery because of insufficient donor hair. A new technique developed by Dr Christiano and colleagues that generates new human hair growth from a patient's own cells could make transplantation feasible for such women, as well as men in the early stages of baldness.

The team, which included researchers from CUMC and Durham University in the UK, knew that rodent hair is easily transplantable, unlike human dermal papilla cells, which revert to basic skin cells when put into a conventional, two-dimensional tissue culture.