UK government funds robot to help treat baldness

True Scotsman · UK government funds robot to help treat baldness

The UK Government is going to fund a robot to treat baldness.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061006/hl_nm/intercytex_baldness_dc

UK government funds robot to help treat baldness

By Marc Jones Fri Oct 6, 5:39 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - The British government is providing 1.85 million pounds ($3.5 million) of funding to a Cambridge-based company that is building a robot to help treat baldness.

Biosciences firm Intercytex aims to perfect a treatment that involves taking hair follicles from the back of the neck, multiplying them and replanting them where they are needed.

The company said on Friday it had been awarded funding from the government's Technology Program, which it planned to use to develop a robotic system to speed up the painstaking process of multiplying the hair cells before they are replanted.

"The technology is challenging. No one has done this before," Intercytex Chief Executive Nick Higgins told Reuters earlier this week.

"We take cells responsible for hair growth, multiply them and then inject them in the head. We tease out the cells responsible for growing a new hair.

"The challenge is to make sure they grow thick enough and quick enough so they are cosmetically acceptable," he added.

The most common form of baldness is triggered by the male hormone dihydrotestosterone, which causes follicles to shrink and hair to thin before disappearing altogether.

Intercytex's research is now in intermediate Phase II testing after having safely been trialled on a handful of volunteers.

The hair is taken during a 30-minute operation under anaesthetic and replanted three weeks later after the cells have had time to grow.

Shares in the firm, which have receded around 30 percent since listing on London's junior AIM market in February, rose 0.6 percent to 88 pence by 0900 GMT.

(With additional reporting by Paul Majendie)

wisnaeme

Oh the vanities of folk to have the latest technical must have which, no doubt will come with a hefty price tag. Perhaps it may be of use in medical applications as in corrective cosmetic surgery but still if the beneficiary of puclic funds is a private enterprise with mainly overseas shareholders, who gains financially? Not the general public in the UK that's for certain. So why the public investment if the taxpayer is not going to be the main financial beneficiary? Well at least the funding is not going to be invested in more efficient means of humans killing one another and for that we may be a little thankful I suppose.

Cado

Ive heard of parties chasing the 'grey' vote but this is taking things to a new level!

Prehaps they're all feeling a little self conscious.....

SLG

I think the hope is that this will generate money and give the government's Technology Program a return. Although is the government investing because they couldn't get any private investment?