The most effective current solution for baldness is hair-replacement surgery, in which follicles are painstakingly moved in small bunches from the thick hair on the back of the head to the barren acreage on top.But what if it were possible to move an entire, full and durable scalp from another person, albeit a dead one, all at once?
That prospect set hundreds of hair-restoration specialists atwitter at a late-September scientific conference in Las Vegas, where transplantation expert Maria Siemionow presented research that many believe will make such a thing a reality one day.
Siemionow, who is renowned for her groundbreaking work in the field of facial transplants, said her team at The Cleveland Clinic has developed a treatment in lab animals that reduces the length of time any recipient must be on immunosuppressant drugs to just a week. Today, the recipient of any transplant must stay on fairly toxic and expensive medication for life, which makes it untenable to do transplants for anything less then life-essential organs. It remains untested in humans.
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