Category Archives: Person to Person Hair Transplants

Allogeneic Hair Transplant, Person to Person Hair Transplants

Man gets Hair and Kidney 20 Years Apart from Same Donor

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In 2019, I wrote a post about an allogeneic hair transplant success (in “humanized” mice) from South Korea. The scientists managed to do this via eliminating dendritic cells from donor hair using ultraviolet B radiation. Unfortunately, no new updates about this work potentially being done in humans has come out despite earlier optimism. Also see my 2015 post on person-to-person hair transplants.

As far back as 1999, Dr. Colin Jahoda successfully transplanted several of his scalp hairs to his wife’s arm, from which four hairs grew. This was termed to be the world’s first successful human hair transplant between people. Also note that bone marrow transplant patients can undergo an allotransplant of hair from the same bone marrow donor.

Normal organ transplants from a donor to a recipient require the lifelong use of immune suppressants, which can cause many side effects. However, when it comes to allogeneic hair transplants, some scientists think that they can be done without the need for immunosuppressants in the future. i.e., hair is not the same as other organs. This would eliminate the biggest problem with autologous hair transplants: insufficient donor hair to cover up the entire bald region of the scalp.

Man gets Hair and Kidney from Another Person

Last week, a very interesting new study came out that was co-authored by Dr. Sanusi Umar (US) and Dr. Felix Mircea Popescu (Romania). It is titled: “Allogeneic Hair Transplant in a Kidney Transplant Recipient.”

Two decades ago, a now 60-year-old man received a kidney from an unrelated donor friend. Come 2022, the same man decided to get a hair transplant using donor hair from that same kidney donor friend. What a tremendous friend! The before and after results turned out great:

Person to Person Hair Transplant
Person to person hair transplant from the same donor who previously gave a kidney. Source: Dermatologic Surgery. August 1, 2023.

Note that this whole process worked because the recipient had already received a well-tolerated 2-decade–long immunosuppressant regimen in order to prevent kidney rejection. He is continuing with this regimen that consists of tacrolimus 2.5 mg/kg/d, mycophenolate mofetil 500 mg/d, and prednisone 0.5 mg/kg/d. So for the purposes of this person-to-person hair transplant, no new medications were needed.

According to the authors, additional hair transplants are planned for this patient so as to address his remaining bald areas. They will use an expanded donor hair supply by combining autologous and allogeneic grafts.

What better reason than this to wish that your friend lives for over 100 years?

Also of Interest:

— First ever skull and scalp transplant.

— Face, organ, and limb transplants: and immunosuppressive drugs.

Person to Person Hair Transplants, Amanda Reynolds, Colin Jahoda, Immunosuppressants

Person to Person Hair Transplants Revisited

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Modern hair transplants generally produce quality results. However, the biggest disadvantage of hair restoration remains the fact that people have limited donor hair at the back of their scalps in the safe “permanent” zone.

Men with large bald areas will usually not get great results from a hair transplant unless their coverage expectations are modest. Meaning that they do not mind seeing barren scalp on days when their hair becomes wet in the rain or disheveled by the wind.

Hence the common question: “Can you transplant hair from one person to another?”. i.e., allogeneic hair transplants.

Person to Person Hair Transplants

Because of this lack of sufficient donor hair supply, one would wonder why person to person hair transplants have not become more common?

The obvious and most cited explanation from hair transplant surgeons is that due to the requirement of taking anti-rejection medications (immunosuppressants) for life, person to person hair transplants are almost never approved. Taking immunosuppressants for life carries significant health risks.

However, from what I have read in numerous organ transplant stories, death from taking anti-rejection drugs is rare. People monitor themselves daily when taking such drugs. I wonder how many people below the age of 60 die from the side effects of taking immunosuppressants?

Moreover, it seems like physicians are getting closer to weaning organ recipients off of immunosuppressants entirely. That would be a miracle. In any case, even if proven to be very safe in the long run, most people would not want to take immune supressing drugs just to get more scalp hair. Therefore, I was not planning on writing a post about person to person hair transplants.

Jahoda and Reynolds: First Successful Hair Transplant Between People

However, yesterday, I happened to reread the summary of a groundbreaking experiment from 1999 by Dr. Colin Jahoda on his wife Dr. Amanda Reynolds. The actual study was published in Nature.

Dr. Jahoda transplanted several of his scalp hairs to Dr. Reynolds arm, and four hairs then grew on Dr. Reynolds arm. I read about this well known experiment numerous times in the past, but forgot to ever check if Dr. Reynolds took immunosuppressants. Then I read the below in the above linked article and felt like a lightening bolt struck me:

Apart from its theoretical use in cosmetic medicine, the experiment reveals that: hair follicles are one of the rare tissues apparently capable of being transplanted from one body to another without rejection. Why evolution has endowed them with such “immune privilege” is a mystery.

This makes me wonder why more surgeons have not attempted person to person scalp hair to scalp hair transplants? In one of my pasts post on transplants and immunosuppressants, one commentator suggested that you could never get another living person to donate his or her hair to you. I think that is absolutely incorrect. If I had a very full thick head of hair and someone offered me say $100,000 to donate 20 percent of my scalp hair, I would be more than happy to do so. If it were a family member, I would do it for free.

Going back to the above article, it seems like Dr. Jahoda transferred dermal sheath cells rather than actual hair. However, the full hairs were extracted from Dr. Jahoda’s scalp prior to extraction of the dermal sheath cells from them via the use of a powerful microscope. Dr. Jahoda holds a patent on this procedure. The doctor did have some doubts about normal hair cycling feasibility after one round of shedding was over.

Success not Guaranteed

I was excited by my finding after re-reading the summary of the Jahoda experiment. Nevertheless, considering that it all happened in 1999, I think there must be some sound explanation behind person to person transplants never taking off.

I did some more googling on this, and came across an interesting comment from 2009 that is pasted below. Usually, I do not like to quote comments from internet based forum members. However, this one from Marion Landan on the regrowhair site seems somewhat legitimate and sincere to me:

“Just want to correct what you are saying about hair transplanting from another person. The people do not have to be identical twins or even related to one another. I have been told by a retiring hair transplant expert who tried some of these surgeries that sometimes it works and sometimes it does not.

Just as there was a learning curve for transfusing blood, there are things not understood about why hair can be transplanted sometimes from an unrelated donor, and sometimes can’t even be transplanted between identical twins (possibly with the twins the bald brother had an infection that caused his original hair loss, after transplantation from his brother, his head swelled up and rejected the new hair). I have also been told that hair transplanting between people was made illegal in the United States several years ago — so doctors no longer try it.”

Why would this have been made illegal? Were there serious side effects involved?

Reducing Rejection Rates after Transplant

Half of Dr. Siemionow’s prediction came true in 2015: first ever skull and scalp transplant.

Finally, it seems like certain commonalities between donor and recipient might increase the likelihood of survival of organs and tissues after a transplant. These can include blood type, certain common genes and more. Transplant survival rates with or without anti-rejection medication will continue to improve as researchers uncover more such details.