3D printing to grow hair: a potential cure for baldness

The hype around 3D printing has been so intense in recent years that it's been touted as a solution to almost every human and manufacturing problem. However, to The Engineer’s knowledge, until now it has never been suggested as a cure for hair loss, but a dermatologist at Columbia University in New York is claiming just that.

The researchers have been trying to find why cells taken from the base of human hair follicles do not sprout hairs when cultured in the lab. "Cells from rats and mice grow beautiful hairs," said Angela Christiano, a professor of dermatology at Columbia’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons. "But for reasons we don't totally understand, human cells are resistant."

Culturing follicular cells until they grow hair and then transplanting them into the scalp would be an effective treatment for hair loss, which affects men and women.

Christiano's approach to the problem has been to try to recreate the conditions in which human follicles grow in the lab. An early attempt, in which she created small clumps of cells inside hanging drops of liquid produced unpredictable results, so she turned to 3D printers to try to create a more natural microenvironment.