As much as Larry David and the people who have tattoos of him profess to like being bald, I’m pretty sure that the one in four men in the UK who start losing their hair in their 20s – like Wayne Rooney – probably aren’t actually that happy about it.

Good news is here today though, as scientists from the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute in California are claiming that they’re well on the way to finding a solution to the problem, as they’ve been able to grow hair for the first time using human stem cells. Previous studies apparently relied on the availability of existing healthy dermal papilla cells — the cells vital to follicle growth — within a person’s scalp which could be grown in a culture away from the human head. The bad news was that as soon as these cells multiplied they would lose their hair growing properties, making the whole operation fairly useless.

Now that these scientists have succeeded in growing hair using human stem cells though, it’s no longer a problem. The technique has already been a success on mice and is gearing up to be tested on humans soon. Head researcher Alexey Terskikh explains the process and the next step:

Our stem cell method provides an unlimited source of cells from the patient for transplantation and isn’t limited by the availability of existing hair follicles. Our next step is to transplant human dermal papilla cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells back into human subjects.

I’m sure most people reading this are shouting ‘get a move on already’ at the screen, but the fact is they’re going as fast as they can. I can only hope that they’ve managed to figure it out and it doesn’t cost a packet by the time I start going bald, because there really isn’t anybody that enjoys losing all their hair.