Monthly Archives: February 2014

Hair Cloning, National Taiwan University Hospital, Sung-Jan Lin

Taiwan Start’s World’s First Human Study on Hair Cloning

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From my experiences of having lived or traveled in many countries and of having been exposed to numerous people from virtually every major country/culture/race/religion in the world, on a per capita basis, hair loss is of most concern to Asians.

When I say Asians, I don’t just mean Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, but also include South Asians (i.e., Bangladeshis, Burmese, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Thais, Vietnamese etc). Since 60 percent of all people in the world reside in Asia as defined above, I had to emphasize that on a per capita basis hair loss is of most distress to people in this region.

Reasons for this include the fact that balding rates are much lower in Asians than in Caucasians, so one really stands out when losing hair. And the fact that head shaving is not nearly as common and fashionable among Asians as among people of African descent. In annual lists of countries with the most plastic surgery procedures (on a per capita basis), Asian nations such as South Korea and Taiwan always seem to be near the top. And Thailand is renowned for cosmetic procedure related medical tourism.

Hair Cloning Study in Taiwan

In any case, it is therefore not surprising that such a significant amount of hair multiplication and hair cloning related research has been coming out of Asia in recent years. The latest is from Taiwan, where the world’s first human hair cloning study/experiment is underway in which around 400 men and women will have their own scalp’s dermal papillae cells cultured in a lab and then implanted into their scalp.

The study is being undertaken at the National Taiwan University Hospital. Successful results have already been shown in animals, and it seems like human testing in Taiwan is less restricted than in the US or Western Europe. Hopefully, the results of this study will be positive with no side effects.

The person who is leading this study is Sung-Jan Lin. You can find some of his research papers on Google Scholar. It seems like the study was originally supposed to commence in May 2006 per this clinical trials overview and I am surprised at such a lengthy delay.

Daily Mail has an article on this ground breaking development.

Advancing Innovation in Dermatology, William Ju

Advancing Innovation in Dermatology

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I have covered a number of hair loss and dermatology related organization on this site in the past.

Advancing Innovation in Dermatology

Recently, I came across a new non-profit US-based organization whose leadership team includes several world renowned hair loss research experts. This organization is called Advancing Innovation in Dermatology (AID). Check out their events page for some of their  own past events as well as those of other associations.

The most well known person on this company’s staff is Ken Washenik of Aderans and Bosley fame. He is perhaps the third most famous hair loss research personality in the world behind George Cotsarelis and Angela Christiano. However, all three of these esteemed scientists have made overly optimistic forecasts about hair cloning or hair multiplication in the past.

William Ju

However, the person that interests me the most is William Ju, the president of Advancing Innovation in Dermatology. Until mid-2013, he was also president of Follica. While Aderans lost its funding in 2013 and seems to hold limited potential for a rebirth, Follica is still operating successfully.

In fact, just prior to leaving Follica, Dr. Ju was quoted in an article (Marketwatch link no longer working) and seemed to be full of optimism regarding Follica’s potential. So it is surprising that so soon after expressing this optimism, Dr. Ju left Follica and moved to a non-profit organization.