Can an Ordinary Vitamin Help Regrow Hair and Overcome Hair Loss?

The website of a small university is reporting that its researchers have just been awarded a patent on a process used to create a vitamin called biotin that is said to promote hair growth. Biotin is not commercially produced anywhere else in the United States.

According to the website, biotin is a nutrient that helps processes like hair and nail growth, energy production and the metabolism of carbohydrates. It is also a major supplement fed to livestock.

“Biochemically, it activates certain enzymes and it is a major cofactor in a lot of processes,” said Bea Clack, associate professor of biotechnology. “But we can’t make it ourselves.”

Biotin is found naturally in foods like liver and bananas, but it is also a major component in most cereals and vitamins produced in the United States. All of the biotin used in those products, as well as in science and agriculture, are all currently imported.

There are three companies that synthesize biotin, and they operate mostly out of China. The process used to create the biotin is a chemical synthesis, using among other chemicals a neurotoxin called Phos-Gen. Because there is a stricter standard for scientific practices in the United States, the process would not be legal here.

A local company, who has asked to remain anonymous, approached Clack and her team more than seven years ago to ask her if it was possible to use different techniques to synthesize biotin, techniques that would be legal in the States.

“We used recombinant DNA techniques. Two students, graduate student Alan Youngblood and undergraduate Jennifer Edwards, were involved in the project,” Clack said. “It took five years to get it right, then three more for the patent to go through.”

The patent for the project went through in September. Now the next step is to see if the process can be commercialized so that biotin can begin to be produced in the United States.

“We’ve sublicensed it to Arthur Daniels Midlands out of Illinois, and they’re going to evaluate whether they can scale it up,” she said. “They have 18 months to do that and if they can, then it will be about 3 years before SFA starts seeing royalties. But it would put us on the map for being able to originate a method of producing biotin in the United States.”

The biotech program at SFA is still relatively unknown. Clack hopes that this research will expand the program.

“We welcome undergrads to come do research for their special topics class. We have a two-year master’s program, as well, and all of our graduates have gone into the industry or further academic research with multiple interviews. We have graduates at UT Southwestern or the UT Houston Health Science Center,” Clack said. “We also have the program split between us and UT Tyler, so students can do their thesis either here or at UT Tyler.”