Bioprinting Hair Follicles

L'Oréal and biotech firm Poietis have inked a multi-year accord related to bioprinting a hair follicle that could lead to the creation a functional follicle capable of producing hair.
 
The beauty giant says the research partnership “offers exciting perspectives at a time when conventional tissue engineering technologies remain limited in terms of the complexity of cell patterns.”
 
The laser-assisted bioprinting technology developed by Poietis to produce biological tissue can position cells in 3D with extremely high cellular resolution (on the order of ten microns) and cellular viability (over 95%), according to L’Oréal. The living biological tissue created needs to be matured for approximately three weeks before it can be used in tests.
 
“We're very proud to be working with L'Oréal. The fact that a world-renowned company is adopting our technology is a major step for Poietis,” said Fabien Guillemot, CEO and chief scientific officer of Poietis, which is based in Pessac, France.
 
“For L’Oréal, the combination of our respective areas of expertise opens up the possibility of previously unheard of achievements in the field of hair. This research partnership is very stimulating for the Advanced Research teams,” noted Jose Cotovio, director of predictive methods and models department, L'Oreal Recherche & Innovation.
 
Poietis and L’Oréal's multi-annual research partnership in the areas of hair biology and hair engineering should ultimately lead to new advances in hair knowledge and enable the development of exclusive efficacy testing on bioprinted hair samples.