For decades, the hair-loss conversation centered on what could be added to one’s habits or head: minoxidil, finasteride, transplants or extensions, with widely varying success rates. While we wait until early 2028 for the FDA to potentially approve a new, more effective VDPHL01 hair pill, those who don’t want to see their hairlines recede further or their locks grow sparser might wish to look into hair banking, i.e., having your own hair potentially beget future hairs, with, eventually, the ability to clone follicles and restore what was lost without limits.
“Hair follicle multiplication holds tremendous promise as the holy grail of hair restoration,” says Dr. Alan J. Bauman of New York City’s Bauman Medical, one of the country’s leading hair restoration physicians. “The ability to create an unlimited number of a patient’s own genetically matched follicles would overcome current donor limitations,” i.e., the finite amount of lawn on the back of your head needed to resod the front of it. The concept is directly borrowed from fertility medicine, like IVF and egg freezing: Bank your cells now, while they’re young and viable, and you’ll have the raw material for whatever regenerative medicine can do next, including, possibly over the next decade, cloning them. Bauman has banked his own and says that not a week passes without a celebrity inquiry.
