Dr. Ken Williams Jr. D.O. FISHRS, a board certified hair transplant surgeon at Orange County Hair Restoration, talks about partnering up with a British hair company to clone hair.
Interview conducted by Ivanhoe Broadcast News in March 2017.
Tell me a little bit about the hair cloning? That sounds so interesting.
Dr. Williams: This is the second generation of hair cloning. The first-generation that we had about fifteen years ago when it started had about ten years’ worth of data and we really didn’t see anything that translated the real good cosmetic results on humans. We had the results with mice and rodents when we did cloning. But we couldn’t translate that to the human beings. We have now about five years that has transpired and we have Dr. Clara Higgins, and she’s from the department of Genetics at Columbia University. She has recently pushed this (hair cloning) forward with this new growth media. What we call “three dimensional” growth media that we’re now hoping will see better growth.
How does cloning work? Because when you think of cloning you think of Dolly the sheep, they don’t really understand.
Dr. Williams: Well, that’s an interesting comparison because Dolly the sheep was created in England. The only country that allows cloning is England. Part of our study is we’re going to be removing the follicles or the hair in the office, and we’re going to put it into a special tissue containers, and they go off into England where the cloning and the replication of the hair follicle occurs. If a patient who wanted to get hair transplantation with cloning right now, they’d have to go get the hair put in, in England because that’s the only country in the world that will allow that. United States doesn’t allow that, Canada, Mexico, no other country allows hair cloning. That’s where Dolly came into in England and that kind of made England a very special place for hair cloning.
The patient who comes in to the trial to do this, would they have to go to England to get their hair re-transplanted?
Dr. Williams: Yes, they would. Now, we may have new regulation changes here in America, obviously that’s looking into the future and when it’s going to be hard to determine when that’s going be allowed here. Currently, as it is right now, they’re going to have to go to England to get the hair transplantation. It’s rather expensive, the process. It’s not cheap. It’s for those individuals who are very, very motivated, and who have marginal donor sites on their scalp, meaning we can’t trasnplant any more hair for hair surgery. We take about fifteen follicles with punch in the technique we call follicular unit extraction (FUE). We take those tissues and hairs and we put them in to special containers and send them off to England.
Once they get to England what happens?
Dr. Williams: Once it gets to England we have a storage facility where there are kept in cryopreservation. Then when the patient is ready to have the actual transplantation they would let us know and we’d go through the process of replication, and getting those fifty cells will now turn in the fifteen hundred cells.
How long does that take?
Dr. Williams: That will take (theoretically) several weeks.
Is it theoretical or do we know this is going to happen?
Dr. Williams: With rodents we know it works, right now we have that. The biggest challenge is can we translate that now to human beings. We’re hopeful because of the scientific advancements by Dr. Clara Higgins from the University at Columbia there so that’s why we’re doing the trials to determine if it’s going to be successful.
You’ll get folks who want to participate in the trial and take the fifty or fifteen follicles.
Dr. Williams: Fifty.
Fifty follicles and then you’ll send them off and then a few weeks later if they’re ready they fly over to England and get it?
Dr. Williams: Exactly, the hair transplantation.
What’s that expenditure then for the patient?
Dr. Williams: We’re looking to do the procedure here in the office about for thousand dollars and that gives you about ten years’ worth of tissue banking. The other fee is for the actual surgery that takes place here and the handling of the tissue and sending it off to England. When they’re ready to have the hair transplantation they just let the company know, Hair Clone and they go have it transplanted.
Is there a cost for that as well?
Dr. Williams: There will be a fee for that.
Plus flying over?
Dr. Williams: Plus flying over, yes.
You really have to be motivated then.
Dr. Williams: You have to be very motivated, yes.
Why is that better than a hair transplantation?
Dr. Williams: Hair cloning originally was envisioned fifteen years ago to replace hair transplantation. But because it just wasn’t successful we don’t have the type of results that can equate or equivalent to hair transplantation. That’s why it died out, lot of people left the industry, there is no money being put in to cloning until the last couple years here.
What’s your hope?
Dr. Williams: My hope, I love hair. I’ll do a hair transplantation, I’ll do cloning, I’ll do stem cells, I’ll do platelet rich plasma, I do whatever it takes according to the patients’ needs and their budget to get them to grow hair.
Are you confident, are you hopeful, what is your state of being as far if this is going to work?
Dr. Williams: We have all of the science and technology for hair cloning the first few years, that decade. With the new science and advancements of science, I’m hopeful. Obviously I want to be objective and analytical and give more assurance but I can’t do that because we just don’t have the scientific data and the research to prove that. But I remain hopeful. I see life through a glass that is half-full rather than half-empty.
Who would be a candidate for this?
Dr. Williams: The typical candidate would be someone who has had multiple surgeries and can’t have any more hair transplantation. But they have lots of areas of balding or alopecia on their scalp. That would be one class of patient. Another class of patient would be a young male adolescent who has a very poor donor area and we can take the fifty cells and clone them, multiply them and re-implant them. They can have hair density that they would otherwise not have.
Realistically how long should it be successful until this would reach the general public?
Dr. Williams: The individuals that hair clone are somewhat enthusiastic about that. We’re talking about a couple of years where it becomes universal. There’s like five centers in the United States who are part of the trial right now. I happen to be one here on the West Coast. There’s a doctor in Denver, there’s a doctor on the East Coast, a Dr. Jerry Cooley who’s in North Carolina. We’re always recruiting for centers and people who are interested. These are people who demonstrate a high motivation for hair science and hair transplantation. Not everybody can do this. You have to be very motivated.
Will they get any compensation or any break in printing because their part of the trial?
Dr. Williams: Yes. They definitely would get a discounted fee for taking a part in the trial.
Is the four thousand because people want to know about the cost because lots of people are very motivated but not necessarily all moneyed up?
Dr. Williams: The four thousand dollars as it’s envisioned is a contract to actually take the tissue and bank it because you have to have special cryopreservation. You have to meet the certain federal government guidelines and so on, that’s about two thousand dollars. And then the other fee for this is the actual surgical fee here in the office for extracting and handling and doing the procedure. That’s about four thousand dollars. To actually do that hair transplantation for the first few years we’re going to be very motivated to make it at least very attractive by having a very low price.
You figure the best is going to be hard to say?
Dr. Williams: Well, the British pound, let’s just make the US Dollar equivalent, would be probably anywhere from five to ten thousand dollars.
That’s a discounted price.
Dr. Williams: Yes.
What else haven’t I asked you about that hair cloning that’s exciting that you think we could include in the story.
Dr. Williams: I think if you did happen to interview Dr. Clara Higgins you’re going to get the best B-Roll because she’ll take you back to her laboratory and you can get some of the real good stuff there. I’m a clinical site here and the one who’s applying the research that was done by her. I’m using my clinical skills. That’s what is exciting about hair cloning. Is that we’re taking academic scientists like Dr. Higgins, and practicing clinical hair restoration surgeon’s and combining the information, and we’re sharing the science and actually implementing it. Dr. Higgins can’t do the hair implantation. I couldn’t do the cloning without her. It’s a very unique combination that we have.
Do you think she’s got video or pictures of things?
Dr. Williams: Oh, I’m confident she has.
Can I contact her from this?
Dr. Williams: If you don’t have that. She’s on a hair clone site link.
END OF INTERVIEW
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