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Hair follicle cloning is the future of hair restoration surgery. It is under active development by doctors and medical researchers, and encouraging signs of success are already beginning to appear. However, no one can easily predict when this technique will be commercially available for the general public. Optimistic estimates put it at as early as 2009, while nay-sayers don't think we can have it any time before 2015.

So what is hair follicle cloning? And what is it that makes it the holy grail of much of modern cosmetic research? Why are doctors and biologists so excited when they speak of this coming technology?

State of the art hair restoration technology is an inelegant affair. The main surgical technique that is used today is known as hair transplantation. Sections of scalp are peeled off from the back and sides of the patient's head, and these are processed by a team of assistants. They cut away fatty and fibrous tissue and prepare the individual follicular grafts.

The surgeon makes countless punctures on the bald area of the scalp. Since these might otherwise look exceedingly ugly, he tries to create some kind of natural pattern with the holes. Then the prepared pieces of follicle graft are inserted into the holes and fixed. The success of the operation depends largely on the surgeon's skill in making the holes, and how densely he is able to pack hairs into the affected area.

There is another type of baldness-related surgery that is equally crude, if not cruder. The bald portions of the scalp are surgically removed, and the hairy portions are pulled until they somehow stretch over the removed area. This is known as 'scalp reduction' surgery. The effect of the stretching cannot be too kind on the shape of the person's face. This sort of treatment almost makes you feel as if the complaint were preferable to the cure.

Hair follicle cloning, a branch of the wider field known as cell culture therapy, proposes an elegant solution to the problem of hair loss. The name 'cloning' is perhaps a bit misleading for this technique. Cloning involves duplication at the genetic level, while this exciting new hair growth therapy would work at the level of cells. This is why many scientists prefer to call it 'hair follicle multiplication'. However, 'follicle cloning' is the more popular term, and we can continue to use it for easier communication.

In this method, small samples are taken from an area of the patient's scalp where the follicles are still healthy and sprouting hair. These are then cultured in the laboratory to produce what is known as 'stem cells'. Our body is composed of thousands of different types of cells. The cells in our brain are not the same as those in our liver. Our blood cells are different from those that compose our intestines. Stem cells are a special kind that have the property of being able to grow into any type of cell that the body needs to repair loss or damage.

The patient's stem cells are artificially induced to grow more healthy hair follicles, just like the samples provided. When an adequate number of follicles has been produced, these are then inserted back into the bare portions of the patient's head. Hopefully, the cultured cells continue to multiply and sprout, eventually covering the head with thick growths of new hair.

Similar techniques are also being developed for other parts of the body, and it is hoped that within a decade or two we should be able to replicate the vital organs, effectively curing many diseases that cause injury to them.

There are two main obstacles to hair follicle cloning, which the researchers are now trying to solve. First, they need to ensure that hair grows at the natural angle on the patient's head. You will have noticed that most people's hair doesn't grow up straight from the scalp, but grows at an acute angle. Currently there is no way to make this happen with cultured follicles. It is not enough to have new hair * that hair must also look like it is your own.

Secondly, there must be a way to control and limit the multiplication of the cultured cells after they're re-inserted into the scalp. If this cannot be done, it might result in unwanted growths and tumors on the head and elsewhere.

The two pharmaceutical companies, one Japanese and the other British, that are working on hair follicle cloning, are pressing very hard and pouring a lot of resources into solving these problems. Let's hope they're successful sooner rather than later!