28 September 2019 | New Scientist | 15Technology
Alice Klein
AN ELECTRIC patch makes hairless
mice grow fur and may reverse
balding in men when fitted in a cap.
At the moment, balding men
can choose to treat hair loss using
minoxidil lotion, finasteride pills
or hair transplant surgery. But
minoxidil doesn’t always work,
finasteride can reduce sex drive and
fertility, and surgery is expensive.
Stimulating the scalp with electric
pulses has also been shown to
restore hair growth. But it isn’t
a practical treatment because it
involves being hooked up to a
machine. To overcome this hurdle,
Xudong Wang at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison and his
colleagues have developed a
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to reverse male balding
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flexible wireless patch that sticks N
to the scalp and generates electrical
pulses by harnessing energy from
random body movements.
Wang’s team tested the patch
on mice that were hairless because
of a genetic deficiency. After nine
days, fur 2 millimetres long grew on
their skin under the patch, whereas
hairs only 1 millimetre long grew
on adjacent skin areas treated
with minoxidil or saline solution.
Hair density was also three times
greater for the patch-treated areas
(ACS Nano, doi.org/dbqp).
Studying the skin of the mice
under a microscope revealed that
the patch seemed to work by
stimulating the release of naturalchemicals that encourage hair
growth, such as keratinocyte
growth factor and vascular
endothelial growth factor.
Wang also tested the patch on his
father, who has been going bald for
the past few years. “It helped himto grow a lot of new hairs after
one month,” Wang says.
His team has now designed
a baseball cap that encases the
whole scalp in the pulse-generating
materials to stimulate hair growth,
and is seeking approval to test
it in men in a clinical trial.
Wang says he is confident it
will work, because hairless mice
are considered good models of
male balding. It shouldn’t be
uncomfortable to wear because
it produces very gentle electric
pulses, he says. ❚This cap contains patches
that generate electricity
from body movements