AGAcell® on "El Español":In four years, we could have a stem cell therapy to end baldness.

In four years, we could have a stem cell therapy to end baldness.

A stem cell‑based therapy has succeeded in regenerating the hair of mice with induced androgenetic alopecia. The breakthrough comes from a Spanish research team led by Dr. Eduardo López Bran, Head of Dermatology at Hospital Clínico San Carlos in Madrid.

López Bran and his colleagues extracted stem cells from adipose (fat) tissue, cultured them, and injected them into 200 mice at sites where the hair follicles had deteriorated. They supplemented the cells with adenosine triphosphate (ATP)—the molecule that serves as the cell’s energy currency.

The results, just published in the journal Stem Cell Research & Therapy, are striking: every male mouse regained at least a substantial portion of its lost hair, and half of them achieved complete regrowth. Ninety percent of the females showed a comparable recovery.

Dr. López Bran has witnessed—and helped drive—every major advance in the treatment of androgenetic alopecia, which affects roughly 80 % of men and about 40 % of women (in women, hair typically thins rather than falls out entirely).

During the 1980s and 1990s he took part in the clinical trials that led to the approvals of minoxidil and finasteride, the two main pharmacological pillars of alopecia treatment. From his own Imema Clinic, which he founded and directs, he also pioneered hair‑transplant surgery in Spain.

The team is now preparing to launch human clinical trials of this stem‑cell therapy. If successful, the approach could eclipse all previous treatments—and potentially consign baldness to the history books of medicine.