What does Dr. Unger think about hair cloning?
From 1998 to 2003, Dr. Unger co-directed studies at the University of Toronto on what is popularly called “cloning” of hair. Stem cells are removed from the patient’s hair and millions of similar cells can be grown in a culture medium within several weeks. These cells, when injected into immune-compromised mice, almost always produced hair. The ultimate objective was and is to inject them back into the human donor and be able to grow unlimited amounts of hair. Clearance for human testing by the University of Toronto Ethics Committee was obtained in October 2000, and studies began in late spring 2001. Two human studies were carried out. One produced hair in 1 of 10 subjects and the second in 3 of 13 study subjects (though less vigorous growth than in the first study). We have temporarily discontinued these studies because of proprietary problems related to the original funding and Dr. Unger’s time constraints. Hopefully, these problems will be resolved soon. Unfortunately, thus far (Jan
