A British company Intercytex has developed a method of removing the hair follicles from the back of the neck, making them multiply and then re-implanting them successfully on the head.

This will be a dramatic breakthrough in the treatment of male pattern baldness, they are hoping to discover a method to make the hair follicles multiply automatically, which will allow the hair follicles, or the derma papilla, to be sold commercially.

The treatment has been tested on seven men with male pattern baldness, five of whom grew hair. The next test is to be on twenty men with male pattern baldness.

During a 30-minute operation, hair follicles are taken from the back of the neck, then they are grown in a culture until there are thousands of them. They are then injected into the scalp where the baldness occurs, and each hair follicle then sprouts a new hair.

The most common form of baldness is triggered by the male hormone dihydrotestosterone, which causes follicles to shrink and hair to thin, and later the hair follicle stops producing a hair. However hair at the back of the neck is not covered by the effect of this hormone.

"The clever bit is we don't want to give the wrong person the wrong hair back." Said a spokesman for the group.

Any treatment that will result for alapaecia will not be available for three years. Dr Nigel Hunt, psychologist at the University of Nottingham and spokesperson for Alopecia UK, said hair loss was traumatic, especially for women.

"I'd want to see some results but if this is shown to work it will change things dramatically," he said. "At the moment there's very little that works.

"Hair loss affects people quite badly when it happens but the other thing is that people will try absolutely any treatment they can get their hands on, which in itself is difficult.

"It's important to make sure that people taking part in the trials are aware it may not work."

He added that it would be interesting to see if the treatment worked for alopecia because hair follicles that may appear to be functioning could have something wrong with them.