In a first, researchers create 3D-printed ‘hair farms’ to enable hair growth

In an interesting new breakthrough, researchers have tried to solve the problem of hair growth faced by many people, through 3D-printed ‘hair farms’ to grow new hair follicles.

For the first time, a team from Columbia University created new way to grow human hair follicles with the help of 3D-printed molds. This creation opens up new doors for unlimited source of hair follicles for potential hair restoration surgical methods.

For creating these ‘hair farms’, the team first made a unique plastic mold with the help of 3D-printers. The moulds were designed to replicate a natural micro-environment stimulating hair follicle growth via tiny extensions only half a millimeter wide, as per New Atlas.

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“Previous fabrication techniques have been unable to create such thin projections, so this work was greatly facilitated by innovations in 3D printing technology,” said first author on the study, Erbil Abaci.

Then, the team showed a cocktail of novel growth factors found is able to effectively trigger hair growth. Human skin was growth around the 3D-printed mold and then the team seeded the device with hair follicle cells from volunteers.

Researchers used a molecule designed to inhibit a pathway known as JAK-STAT. This pathway keeps hair stem cells inactive, and the newly developed inhibitors can reawaken this sleeping pathway, starting hair follicle growth.

This process is said to grow the hair follicles at a rate that would eventually permit an unlimited supply of follicles without requiring hair grafts from donors.

“What we’ve shown is that we can basically create a hair farm: a grid of hairs that are patterned correctly and engineered so they can be transplanted back into that same patient’s scalp,” described lead author Angela Christiano.

In future, more work is required to optimize and commercialize the process before it available for clinical use. The team is certain that this method will help thickening hair, and help those looking forward to hair restoration surgery.