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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: SF Chinese (ID:kexuejiaodian), author: SF

Hair loss bothers a lot of people. Every time you wash your hair, wake up every morning, look at a handful of falling hair, and then look at your rising hairline, many people may have "baldness anxiety". To this end, people try a variety of methods to treat hair loss, such as smearing hair growth agents, eating foods that help to grow hair, and even hair transplants. But most of these methods have little effect. Recently, scientists have proposed a new way to overcome hair loss-using 3D printing to help people get rid of "baldness anxiety".

Hair loss may be caused by genetic factors, hormonal changes, health status, etc., or it may be the result of normal aging, especially in men. The hair follicles in the skin of the head are the key to the treatment of hair loss.

3D printing defeats hair loss in October 2023, a paper published in the journal Science Advances pointed out that artificial hair follicles can be printed using 3D printing technology, which is expected to treat hair loss.

The study was carried out in the laboratory by a research team at the Rensselaer Institute of Technology. The scientists on the team first asked skin and hair follicle cells to divide and proliferate to get enough "material" to print. Next, scientists add proteins and other materials to make "biological ink". Using these biological inks, 3D printers build the skin layer by layer, while creating channels for the growth of hair cells. Gradually, print out the hair follicle structure in the real skin.

Pluripotent proteoglycan (Versican) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) are related to the regeneration of hair follicles in the dermis. In this study, scientists detected pluripotent proteoglycans and ALP at the bottom of the hair follicles, proving that the 3D-printed skin tissue could produce functional hair follicles.

At present, scientists only use 3D printing technology to create artificial hair follicles, and can achieve mass production. However, at this stage, these tissues can only survive for 2 to 3 weeks, which is not enough to grow fully mature hair stem. If you want to use 3D-printed hair follicles to treat hair loss, scientists need to do more research.

3D printing other human organs in addition to 3D printing hair follicles to ease "baldness anxiety", scientists have also come up with ways to use 3D printing human organs for organ transplants to treat patients with advanced organ failure or severe organ diseases. Many scientists believe that 3D printing can solve the problem "once and for all"-a solution that will break through all the obstacles faced by organ transplants today.

In recent years, some human tissues that are easy to prepare have been printed out. In 2022, chondrocytes from patients with ear deformities were extracted and amplified by 3DBio   Therapeutics. On the basis of these cells, the biological ink mixture was made, and the implant with healthy human ear shape was made by using 3D biological printing mechanism, and the transplantation was completed successfully.

In 2023, scientists at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an American start-up used new laser scanning technology for the first time to print "hands" made of different polymers with bones, ligaments and tendons.

Scientists use 3D printing to create "hands" with bones, ligaments and tendons. (photo source: Buchner et al.,2023) however, 3D printing of human organs is not perfect. In addition to causing organ damage in the printing process, 3D printing of human organs is also vulnerable to gravity. To this end, some scientists have proposed that printing can be carried out in the microgravity environment of low-Earth orbit. In 2023, Redwire Space printed the meniscus of the human knee joint on the International Space Station using a 3D biological manufacturing facility and brought it back to Earth for transplant experiments.

Dr. Pankaj Karande, associate professor of chemistry and bioengineering at Rensselaer University, said the new technology has potential applications in regenerative medicine and drug testing, although it will take several years to produce artificial skin grafts that can grow hair.

References:

Incorporation of hair follicles in 3D bioprinted models of human skin | Science Advances

S41586-023-06684-3.pdf (nature.com)

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