It's clear that if there's a cure in hair loss, it will not be from drug formulations. No drug is 100% responsive in all people, and almost all drugs have side effects in some people. Also, male pattern baldness seems to have multiple factors (hormone and immune related), so finding one treatment effective in all factors is unlikely. The likely solution is to be found in gene therapies currently being investigated. There are known ways to deliver genes to hair follicles. All that is unknown is the genes needed for proper treatment. Researchers are currently investigating which genes are responsible for hair loss. Most knowledgeable in the subject believe there are at least two genes involved. Once the location of this gene is known, effective gene therapy treatments can be created. Unfortunately, there is no telling when the "cure" will come. The genes could be discovered tomorrow or 50 years from now. When minoxidil was first approved in 1988, researchers told us they would probably have a cure for baldness in 10 years. That time is almost up and no cure has been discovered, so don't hold your breath until the cure is found. One thing I would like to note is that most therapies coming out and even gene therapy require LIVE hair follicles. Over the years during baldness, follicles miniaturize to smaller and smaller sizes. Eventually, the follicle dies and can never grow hair again. This usually happens after 5-10 years of gradual miniaturization, although follicles have been known to last longer than 10 years. If and when the cure comes along, the more hair follicles you have left alive, the better your response will be. If you have been completely bald for 20 years, odds are you probably won't get much back. Even if you haven't been bald that long, those follicles will not grow back and the result may not be as good as it could be. My point is that current treatments such as Minoxidil or Proscar, while not the greatest treatments in the world, prolong hair follicle life. Even if Minoxidil begins to lose its effect, those little small hairs that are left over can eventually regrow hair when a better treatment comes along. They may not be there if you don't do something now, and Minoxidil is available for about $17 a month now. It seems to me to be a small price to pay to keep your hair long enough for a REALLY good treatment to come out. Remember, the more hair you have, the better it grows back when you treat it. Even if Minoxidil only slows your progression, you will still have better results when you do find a better treatment. (Soapbox mode off!)

Cloning, cloning, cloning! Cloning has been in the news lately. I find it hard to believe that we can clone a Monkey or a Sheep but not a human hair. It is being researched, and supposedly some scientists have had success cloning hairs or parts of the hair follicle. With all that's coming out about these clonings, I think it won't be long before we see an effective hair cloning/transplantation procedure.

Problems with cloning: First, I don't know much about cloning, but I would think that growing MASS amounts of hair needed for transplantation may be inhibitively costly. Since the cloned hair would be yours, each set of hair would have to be custom cloned. It would probably be very expensive, at least to start. Also, you can clone a hair, but that doesn't clone the blood vessel lining and skin structure around the hair. The blood vessel lining is transplanted with the hairs in normal transplants. This ensures a proper blood supply to the hair. If MPB damages the blood vessel lining, it may be difficult for cloned hairs to survive. Then again, maybe they will be able to clone the blood vessel lining, who knows! Another bad thing about cloning... you still have to go through an expensive surgical procedure with a doctor who may goof it up or provide poor results.

Good things about cloning: Will allow you to transplant as many hairs as you need to get the right look. You'll never have to worry about balding more than you have enough hairs to cover, because you can always clone some more and transplant more. Once you have transplanted all the cloned hairs (assuming it works right), you'll never have to worry about MPB again, including medical hair loss treatments, etc.

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