T&R Biofab Technologies. 3D Hair Spheroids, Stem Cells and More.
T&R Biofab: 3D Culturing of Hair Follicle Spheroids
Yet another company from South Korea is focusing on curing hair loss. T&R Biofab recently announced that it had registered for a domestic patent in regards to its hair follicle spheroid (via 3D culturing) hair loss treatment. They develop these hair spheroids via the use of proprietary 3D bioprinting technology.
The company was founded in 2013, and its name stands for “Tissue Engineering, Regenerative Medicine and Biofabrication”. See the embedded video at the bottom of this post for more.
This new patent-pending technology entails the production of asymmetric hair follicle spheroids. The subsequent hair is able to grow in a specific direction using multiple bio-inks containing outer root sheath cells, dermal papilla cells, and inner hair sheath cells. Per a company spokesperson, they plan to further develop and commercialize related technologies that target the rapidly growing hair loss treatment market.
Note that in 2021, T&R Biofab collaborated with Epibiotech (South Korea) to co-develop a pluripotent stem cell therapy for hair loss. At the time, the company’s CEO Yun Won-soo said that:
“Epibiotech’s dermal papilla cell differentiation technology and our pluripotent stem cell line will create a combination with high synergetic effect.”
T&R Biofab is highly experienced in the field of 3D bioprinting and regenerative medicine. In fact, earlier in 2024, the company was involved in the world’s first 3D-printed windpipe transplant. And in 2023, the company’s bioprinting technology was used to 3D print a skull section and implant it into an injured Ukrainian soldier’s head. On a related note, also check out my 2021 post in the world’s first ever scalp and skull transplant.
Update: March 11, 2022 — 3D bioprinting of a gelatin-alginate hydrogel for tissue-engineered hair follicle regeneration. This new approach from Chinese scientists permits the controllable formation of self-aggregating spheroids of dermal papilla cells. It also leads to the initiation of epidermal-mesenchymal interactions, which results in hair follicle formation in vivo.
Recent Studies on 3D Culturing of Hair Cells
Over the past few months, a number of studies have come out in relation to 3D culturing of hair cells (in particular, dermal papilla cells). Below, I list them from most recent to oldest.
July 27, 2020 — A new study from North Carolina State University compared 3D versus 2D cultured dermal papilla cells. The 3D dermal papilla cells in a scaffold performed best in regrowing hair. More interestingly, the scientists also studied microRNAs (miRNAs) in dermal exosomes from both the 2D and 3D DP cells. The team then identified one (miR-218-5p) in particular as a key promoter of hair growth. Per lead study investigator Dr. Ke Cheng, the best part is that MiRNAs can be developed into small molecule-based drugs, including creams. A much easier feat in comparison to cell growth, expansion and injection.
June 16, 2020 — Several people in the comments mentioned a new paper titled: “Generation of human hair follicle organoids in vitro and ex vivo by co-culture of primary human hair matrix keratinocytes and dermal papilla fibroblasts”. One of the co-authors of this paper is Dr. Ralf Paus. This experiment succeeded in human scalp skin and not just in mice (h/t reader “Joe”).
April 28, 2020 — Culturing human hair follicle dermal papilla cells in a 3D self-assembling peptide scaffold. The results of this study suggest a new potential 3D culture platform based on a self-assembling peptide scaffold called RAD16-I. This method successfully created hair follicle dermal papilla cells.
3D Culturing of Hair Follicles and Dermal Papilla Cells. Source: Wiley Online Library.
April 15, 2020 — A new paper on reconstructed human skin with working hair follicles. Co-authors include the renowned Dr. Roland Lauster and Dr. Gerd Lindner.
The results section has an interesting part titled “Comparison of cultured neopapillae spheroids with scalp hair dermal papillae”. Several of the images of the 3D cultured hair follicles are shown on the right. Neopapillae spheroids were constructed from expanded self‐aggregating dermal papilla cells.
December 26, 2019 — Tissue engineering strategies for human hair follicle regeneration. This review analyzes the various research approaches being developed to tackle hair follicle bioengineering. Lots of discussion about 3D culturing, various types of scaffolding and dermal papilla trichogenicity. For the scientifically inclined readers, Table 1 is quite useful and I am pasting a small part of it here:
This week seems to be full of interesting developments, but the below news made all the global headlines.
Dr. Angela Christiano (Columbia University — US) and Dr. Colin Jahoda (Durham University — UK) just released their latest findings on hair follicle culturing. Their main discovery involves using a “hanging-drop” method of 3D spheroid culturing of dermal papilla cells. As opposed to a regular 2D petri dish culturing method that had failed in the past.
This new 3D method has shown significant success. However, it is still a years away from being able to be used in humans with consistent and safe results.
