Dr. Cooley is a board certified dermatologist and dermatologic surgeon who specializes in hair restoration surgery in Charlotte, North Carolina.

He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and completed his dermatology residency of the University of Maryland in Baltimore.

He performed research studies on "cloning" hair follicle cells with researchers at the Johns Hopkins Hospital during this time.

He has published scientific articles in prominent medical journals including Dermatologic Surgery, the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, Dermatologic Clinics, and the Journal of Investigative Dermatology.

Yet, no articles about his results on hair follicle multiplication are known.

At the same time, Dr. Vogel, who is working with Dr. Cooley told on TV, that they are working on hair multiplication technique.

For this report go to: www.newsnet5.com/yourhealth/yourhealth-20000511-152929.html

By Jerry Cooley, M.D.[from ISHRS web site]

The possibility of creating a large number of hair follicles from a single hair follicle is
sometimes inaccurately referred to as “hair follicle cloning”. The term cloning is used by
scientists to refer to the technique where genes are inserted into a cell, and the daughter
cells all have the same gene. Genes are sequences of DNA which code for a particular
protein necessary for the proper functioning of the cells of our bodies. For example, an
individual gene for protein X may be inserted into a cell. The daughter cells of this
original cell will all produce the same protein X. We then say we have ‘cloned’ that gene.
An extension of this technique is to not just take one gene, but all the genes which make
up an organism and insert these into an embryonic cell which subsequently develops into
an exact replica of the original organism. The most famous example of this technique is
‘Dolly’, the cloned lamb, who burst on the international scene in 1996.

The mechanism where a single hair follicle could be turned into hundreds or thousands of
hair follicles is not ‘cloning’ but tissue engineering or what is sometimes called cell
therapy. This technique does not involve the insertion of particular genes but works at a
higher level, the cell. Cells are the basic building blocks of life. The number of cells in an
organism varies from the one-celled viruses and bacteria to humans which are composed
of billions of cells.

Cells can be isolated from an organism and then can be grown in the laboratory by
keeping the cells bathed in special medium (culture medium) and controlling the amount
of oxygen and other gases around the cells. Cell therapy consists of taking these
cultured cells and placing them into a patient to correct a particular condition. Cell
therapy is one of the most exciting areas of medical research today. Conditions which
are or will be treated by cell therapy include skin ulcers and burns, arthritis, diabetes,
cancer, Parkinson’s Disease, liver failure, to name a few. It does not take a big stretch of
the imagination to see how this idea could be used to treat hair loss. Nor is it surprising
that several research groups around the world are actively trying to do just that.

The potential application of tissue engineering for treating human hair loss is obvious and
exciting. By analogy, cell therapy treatment for burns and ulcers consists of taking a
postage size area of skin and growing it in the laboratory to create enough cells to cover
an entire football field. These cells can then be used to treat several patients. If the cells
of the hair follicle could be multiplied in the laboratory and placed back into the balding
scalp, it may be possible to create thousands of hair follicles from that original follicle. In
fact, this phenomenon has already been proven feasible in humans. However, this
research is currently still in the most preliminary of stages and there are indeed many
obstacles to making this treatment safe and effective.

One important obstacle is ensuring that the implanted cells produce hair that has the
same cosmetic characteristics of the original hair. Just as in hair transplantation
procedures performed today, one key feature would be hair growth direction. The
difference between an acceptable hair transplant and a truly superb, undetectable
transplant can be as simple as the latter having hair growing at the natural acute angle to
the skin. Even one-haired micrografts may not look natural if they grow straight up at a
right angle. If cell therapy were ever proven successful for producing hair growth, that
would not be enough. It would have to produce natural looking hair.

The most important consideration for government regulators such as the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) will be ensuring the safety of cell therapy for hair loss. The chief
worry with using laboratory grown cells is that they might cause tumors when placed back
into the skin. So far cell therapy for other applications has not been known to be
associated with tumor formation. Before granting approval, the FDA would require
adequate proof that implanted hair follicle cells did not give rise to any tumors.

Although the potential for cell therapy to provide an answer to those suffering with hair
loss is great, these obstacles will prove challenging to researchers. Although a research
group may at any point unexpectedly report that they have achieved success in these
areas, the more likely scenario is many more years of basic research before we know
what role cell therapy will play in the treatment of hair loss