Several of Ireland’s most famous baldies have reacted to the news that a cure for the follicly challenged could soon be available.
Scientists in the US have recently discovered a way of creating hair that grows through the skin using human stem cells.
Previously the only way was to transplant hair follicles from one part the head to another.
The process was first unveiled in 2015, but was not complete as the hair grown looked unnatural. However, now the team have found a way to grow tufts of hair that look and feel real.
They hope they will soon be able to take a blood sample from a patient, isolate their stem cells, and coax them into becoming dermal papilla cells – the cells that regulate hair follicle formation.
This can then be injected directly into the patient’s head, where they will embed and grow.
Dr Alexey Terskikh is one of the lead scientists on the project. He said: “Now we have a robust, highly controlled method for generating natural-looking hair that grows through the skin using an unlimited source of human stem cell-derived dermal papilla cells. This is a critical breakthrough.”
The news has been met with a mixed response from some of Ireland’s most famous bald people.
Fine Gael TD Noel Rock said: “This is the news I have been waiting for. I’ll never shy away from telling the bald truth, but I’d rather do it without a bald head!”
However, adventurer Pat Falvey revealed he has his own hair transplant experience. The Cork man said: “With vanity in my 30s, I was starting to go bald so I went and had a hair transplant.
“But it cost so much money and I didn’t have enough donor hair to cover all the parts, that I started losing my hair around the transplanted hair. So in the end I started looking like a Mohican.
“The transplanted hair keeps growing and it just looked absolutely ridiculous, so when the vanity side hit reality.
“But if I had known what I know now I would have just shaved my head. As far as I am concerned I am sexier bald.”
