Think of it as a radical body modification. Suppose someone wasn’t really a fan of having hair at all and wanted to just not. Most of the scientific research on hair loss has been about stopping or reversing it, but in all that research have we learned whether we could cause it to happen on purpose? I don’t mean conventional hair removal, and I don’t mean laser or electrolysis which both have significant limitations and wouldn’t be feasible for total hair loss on the entire body.

I mean like a vaccine for hair, an injection someone could take that would cause their immune system to attack all their hair follicles in the same way we see in alopecia universalis, so they have literally no hair at all anywhere on their body permanently. It feels like it should be possible, especially now with the increasing use of mRNA vaccines.

  • tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    21
    ·
    1 day ago

    I’m sure that there’s some theoretical route to do it, but I’d be really hesitant about trying to induce situations where one’s immune system attacks one’s own cells. That can do some pretty unpleasant things.