Research is currently underway that would one day make scalp transplants plausible. The difficulty is not in attaching a scalp from one head to another head - surgeons can already do that. The concern is one of rejection. As with all organ transplants, transplant recipients must rely on toxic and expensive medications for life. While this makes sense for life-saving procedures, it does not make sense for cosmetic reasons.

In order to make scalp transplants a reality, a safer type of immunosuppressant drug needs to exist. This is what the scientists at The Cleveland Clinic, who are working with facial transplantation expert Maria Siemionow, are trying to develop. The research team has been able to develop a treatment for lab animals that reduces the length of time the medication needs be taken to only one week. The drug has not yet been tested on humans, but it appears to be only a matter of time.

While the purpose of the current research is to make full-scalp transplants possible for victims of severe burns and trauma, many hair restoration specialists are considering the cosmetic applications of such a procedure. While a scalp transplant may seem extreme, we should remember that many other medical procedures that we take for granted today, such as heart transplants and in-vitro fertilization, were also considered extreme at one time as well.

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