Published On November 6, 2018. Last Updated on March 21, 2022.
What is the Dr.UGraft™ FUE Hair Transplant System?
Dr.UGraft™ is a revolutionary hair transplant system built to empower doctors and transform lives. The system features a set of uniquely designed devices that have completely changed the game when it comes to FUE hair transplant procedures. These features include, but are not limited to:
- The Intelligent Punch (aka Dr.UPunch i) – The Intelligent Punch boasts several patented and patent-pending attributes, marking a major paradigm shift in FUE punch design. Groundbreaking features include innate depth control to compensate for punch misalignment, the cancellation of torsion injuries while the graft is inside of the lumen, and intuitive navigation of the deep skin course of follicles regardless of angulation or texture. The Intelligent Punch™ renders transection rates negligible; grafts are bulkier and wound footprints are smaller than ever. The Dr. UGraft Zeus® with its Intelligent Punch minimizes the learning curve for all FUE procedures. It makes the mechanical excision of tightly-curled, Afro-textured hair consistently successful for the first time.
- The Dr.UGraft™ Handpiece – An ergonomic, lightweight rotary handpiece that makes it possible to connect the Intelligent Punch™ to the Dr.UGraft™ Zeus Console.
- The Dr.UGraft™ Zeus Console – A revolutionary console with an integrated fluid hydration system, torque, speed, and multiphasic movement mode settings. When used with Dr.UGraft™ and Intelligent Punch™, the console comes with default settings to cater to a diverse array of possible FUE scenarios based on skin and hair type.
Video: Dr.UGraft Zeus Basics
The Dr.UGraft™ Advantage for Better Hair Restoration Outcomes
The Dr.UGraft™ Advantage for Better Hair Restoration Outcomes
The Dr.UGraft™ ZEUS system helps practitioners perform linear scar-free hair transplant procedures faster, , and more accurately than ever before. Not only that: it provides patients with higher quality grafts with greater survival rates. Innovative features work together to make this possible in a way that’s never been done before. These features include a flared punch tip, an expanded inner volume, an upward pulling action, a unique graft control mechanism, and fluid irrigation with hands-free ejection provided by the Dr.UGraft™ Zues System.
Dr.UGraft™ provides physicians with a powerful and reliable system for safely extracted, bulkier grafts. This increases the likelihood of successful growth after a hair transplant. In addition to its superior performance and unmatched versatility, the Dr.UGraft™ Zeus is:
- Easy to assemble and operate.
- Equipped with presets to cover all FUE scenarios, taking away the of navigating complex settings.
- Easy to sterilizable in an autoclave.
- Portable; included with your system is a convenient carrying case, perfect for traveling and working in the field or remotely, away from your main clinic, to your satellite offices.
The Dr.UGraft™ family of products and accessories offers you and your practice a long list of exclusive benefits and features, all culminating into a system specifically tailored to overcome the challenges commonly associated with FUE hair transplant, including all individuals with thick skin and tightly-curled Afro-textured hair.
We are the first in history to devise a system that:
- Can successfully excise follicles of any shape or texture, regardless of the patient’s ethnic background or genetic make-up. This includes Afro-textured hair of all varieties.
- Is able to harvest donor grafts from any area of the body, enabling the practitioner to achieve more natural-looking results.
- Intuitively guides the operator to the appropriate setting for the patient in question’s skin type.
- Features an optional self-lubricating punch tip that hydrates each graft at the point of excision. This creates a protective water seal that prevents graft death via desiccation. While in operation, the punch lubrication enhances the Intelligent Punch™’s self-navigating and self-guiding functionality.
Better Wound Healing – Dr.UGraft™ for Linear Scar Free Hair Surgery
Ordinary FUE punches (left, middle) create wounds with relatively less everted edges. The Intelligent Punch™ (right), however, features a flared tip that expands as the punch penetrates the skin, creating wound profiles that are much less everted. This creates scars that heal flatter and less noticeably.
The wound profiles left behind by other FUE punches (left, middle) tend to remain round and bumpy after healing. The less-everted edges created by the Intelligent Punch™ (right) typically result in smaller, flatter scars in the donor area.
The Dr.UGraft™ Zeus linear scar-free hair surgery avoids imparting a linear scar like the ones a conventional strip surgery would leave the patient with. Due to its highly advanced engineering, it also produces better-quality grafts. Additionally, the UGraft™ Zeus improves wound-healing profiles. Due to the Dr. UGraft Zeus®’s revolutionary flared tip, the wound cavity created is less everted than those produced by basic rotary punches. Everted wounds heal much more visibility. The resulting less-everted wound created by the Dr. UGraft Zeus® typically heals smaller and flatter. For patients worried about the cosmetic impact of hair restoration procedures on their donor area, this is a critical factor.
Competitors may offer FUE punches that superficially resemble the Dr. UGraft Zeus®, but don’t be fooled. Generic flared FUE punches sport out-turned lips that exceed the diameter of the punch overall. Dr. U calls such imitations “dumb punches”. This primitive oversight in design actually increases the diameter of the puncture wound unnecessarily. In contrast, the smart punch design of the Dr. UGraft Zeus® features a trumpeted tip that does not overstep the volumetric boundary of the punch wall itself. This nuance in detail allows the patient to reap all of the benefits of a flared distal tip without being subject to wounds that are wider than they have to be. The smart punch’s shape dramatically reduces rates of impaction and torsion. It actively prevents grafts from becoming buried during the extraction phase.
One Device for All Hair Types – The Intelligent Punch™
The Dr.UGraft Zeus handpiece, outfitted with the Intelligent Punch™.
The Dr. UGraft Zeus® features an intelligent punch that is designed for use on all hair types. Regardless of hair texture, skin thickness, or location on the body, this incredibly versatile breakthrough is an all-in-one system suitable for any type of FUE hair transplant needs. The flared-tip design performs a uniquely hybrid form of scoring. The Intelligent Punch™ cuts away from the graft with the sharp distal end. Simultaneously, a dull inner wall faces the follicle itself, protecting it from transection. Specially designed features pull the graft upward and allow the punch to intelligently follow the angle of the hair below the skin to safely surround the follicle. This significantly reduces the possibility of graft death, particularly for hair found on areas of the body aside from the scalp. Two key sets of features that truly distinguish the Dr. UGraft Zeus® from previous generations of conventional hair transplant punches include:
Patented and Patent-Pending Graft Grip, Pull, and Score Features
The Dr. UGraft Zeus® is built with a special set of features known as graft grip, pull, and score. This mechanism works by first gripping the surrounding tissue, gently pulling it upward into the lumen, and scoring the graft. Engineered to strike an essential balance between pulling and cutting, Dr.UGraft Zeus meets the provider halfway. Excessive pulling can incur the risk of completely uprooting the hair from the follicle. In effect, this is equivalent to plucking the hair.
The graft grip, pull, and score ability allows the punch to follow the hair down to the follicle, regardless of angulation. Therefore, doctors can confidently extract hairs from virtually anywhere on the head and body. This includes tightly curled hair, which has been a challenging task for conventional FUE hair punches to take on in the past.
The Dr. UGraft Zeus®’s Expanding Inner Volume
The graduated expanded inner chamber of the Dr. UGraft Zeus® is a structural characteristic that changes this scenario. The inner lumen widens as the punch penetrates deeper into the skin. More room within prevents graft injury from becoming trapped and being twisted by the action of the punch. This expansion also works as a built-in depth control feature that eliminates the need for other, more time-consuming, and inconvenient methods of controlling the depth of the punch. The uniquely designed walls also assist in blunt dissection, helping to push away anchoring attachments from the scored graft.
The expanded punch volume of the Dr. UGraft Zeus® helps avoid graft torsion while also acting as a form of built-in depth control.
The expanded inner punch volume, combined with the flared distal tip of the punch, also allows for the safe extraction of wider follicular units, where other basic extraction tools would likely transect the grafts. The patented graft grip, pull, and score features of The Intelligent Punch™ (Dr. UGraft Zeus®) has a gentle pulling effect, which, together with the fluid irrigation system, allows these wider follicular units to be extracted safely and easily.
How The Dr.UGraft’s Intelligent Punch™ Takes the Guesswork Out of Any FUE Procedure
The intelligent Dr.UPunch i ™ of the Dr.UGraft™ family is engineered to overcome the key barriers preventing physicians from safely harvesting healthy, robust grafts. These features make procedures easier than ever for surgeons to perform. Extractions with the Zeus are faster, more fruitful, and more intuitive than previous generations of FUE punches. Our system is able to produce adequate quantities of healthier, bulkier grafts.
When using only tiny, cylindrical-shaped FUE punches to harvest grafts, surgeons must accurately guess the position and orientation of the follicular units beneath the skin. For straight hair, this process is relatively straightforward and uncomplicated. However, for hair that is angled, curved, or wavy, such as in the case of patients with Afro-textured hair, using these basic punches to remove the follicular graft becomes more difficult and risky. The quality of results and reduced learning curve are two hallmark qualities that make the Dr.UGraft™ system the ideal system for anybody seeking an FUE hair transplant.
Graft Control with the Intelligent Punch™
The patented graft grip, pull, and score feature made possible by the flared punch end of Dr.UPunch i™ and the Dr.UPunch™ Smart is designed to reduce the guesswork involved in any FUE hair transplant procedure. As mentioned earlier, this feature enables the device to grip the tissue surrounding the hair follicle unit and gently pull it upward as the outer edge cuts around the graft.
The gripping capability makes it unnecessary to follow changes in hair angles in order to safely reach the follicle. The Dr.UPunch i™ is designed to automatically navigate the angle of growth of any type of follicle. This allows the technician to accurately encompass the graft itself, no matter how sharply angled the hair is. The intuitiveness and intelligence of this punch reduce the amount of guesswork needed to successfully and precisely extract all follicle types, including Afro-textured hair. In the end, this makes the job of the hair transplant practitioner substantially easier.
In addition to navigating challengingly sharp hair angles, surgeons must also avoid injuring grafts through accidental punch misalignments. With the proprietary Dr.UGraft™ hybrid punch shape, the follicular unit is kept safe and protected from the sharp cutting edge of the distal tip.
The hybrid punch design helps overcome common sources of mechanical graft injury. These safety measures contribute to a reliable, systematic way of harvesting better quality grafts at scale.
Dr.UGraft™ Eliminates the Need For Depth Control
Depth control is a critical aspect of FUE procedures. In conventional FUE, Practitioners must make sure that the punch stops at the correct depth, beyond which the punch risks transecting the follicle. To attain this, traditional FUE relies either on the innate sixth sense of the practitioner or employs the use of contraptions tagged on the punch at a certain punch length to such that the punch cannot penetrate the skin beyond that point. In contrast, the Dr.UGraft™ system is built to seamlessly and intuitively take care of depth control needs, while at the same time making depth control a non-issue. This is accomplished through its intelligent punch design and its interaction with its driver which has been tuned to respond to changing depth and skin thickness.
Video: Elimination of Depth Control
The video below illustrates how in the UGraft, the depth control is intuitive to the system, requiring minimal input from the provider and eliminating the need for using external depth control adapters within a single follicular unit with the use of patented graft control features.
Ignoring the issue of depth control will result in more frequent rates of transection and the punch inadvertently delving too deeply into the skin, disrupting the delicate structures that must be preserved in order to produce a viable graft.
The Graft Grip, Pull, and Score Feature Pulls Grafts Upward, Making Punch Depth Irrelevant
The primary concern of depth control is to prevent punches from being pushed too deeply into the dermis, resulting in increased rates of transection during the extraction process. With the graft grip, pull, and score feature of the Dr.UGraft™ rotary devices, the grafts are pulled upward into the punch. Thus, the flared hybrid tip avoids transecting the specimen, even when penetrating too deeply into the skin. This makes active depth control unnecessary and irrelevant. The goal of safely harvesting follicular units is successfully met through these unique and innovative means.
The Expanded Inner Punch Volume Creates Natural Resistance That Limits Punch Depth
In support of the graft grip, pull, and score feature is the expanded inner punch volume. This unique attribute creates more room inside of the punch. In addition to providing more room within the instrument to account for impacted grafts, it also causes the operator to feel natural resistance as the punch tip penetrates into the skin. This prevents them from plunging too deeply and acts as a natural means of innate depth control.
Dr.UGraft™ Makes Extractions Faster and Easier With Hands-Free Graft Rescue
The Dr.UGraft™ Zeus has an optional fluid accessory that enables the operator to irrigate grafts during the scoring action and to rescue them hands-free if they get impacted during the procedure.
With conventional FUE systems, follicles can sometimes become trapped within the lumen mid-procedure. When using conventional FUE devices, impacted grafts must be removed manually and the procedure interrupted. This prolongs the procedure and exposes grafts to unnecessary handling, often resulting in graft death. These impacted specimens can sometimes go unnoticed, clogging the instrument. As follicles continue to be harvested, stuck grafts will crowd the lumen, crushing those incoming.
This challenge is easily addressed by the optional UGraft™ Zeus fluid graft ejection system. The ability to easily rescue impacted grafts is conveniently controlled with a foot pedal. This hands-free capability allows practitioners to work uninterrupted while harvesting.
Dr.UGraft™ Creates Hardier Grafts Through a Convenient Hydration Mechanism
Dr.UGraft™ Zeus hydrates grafts during the scoring process. This hydration system can also be used to rescue grafts impacted within the punch walls.
In addition to being able to clear out impacted grafts, the Zeus optional fluid feature adds moisture seal to follicles at the time of extraction. This prevents them from being exposed to air and drying out, the leading cause of graft death and poor hair growth yield.
The ability to quickly and easily add fluid during extraction allows for bulkier, more hydrated grafts that are more capable of surviving long-term in the recipient area. The animated video below demonstrates how this works.
The Dr.UGraft™ Zeus Console attaches to the Dr.UGraft™ Nurture hand-piece and offers five speed settings of irrigated drip control. This irrigation hydrates follicles during the extraction process. Grafts are moistened during extraction to keep them healthy pending implantation. Graft desiccation, or graft death due to dehydration, is a key concern for many considering hair restoration procedures. It is the most common reason for poor growth after a hair transplant.
Video: Hands-Free Graft Rescue with the Dr.UGraft™ Nurture Handpiece
The Dr.UGraft™ Nuture handpiece features an irrigated rescue system, allowing your doctor to free impacted grafts without stopping the procedure. When the foot pedal of the console is activated, fluid is ejected from the lumen, pushing the graft out from the inner chamber of the punch while simultaneously hydrating it. This makes the practice of removing trapped grafts manually with forceps obsolete, preventing graft death and poor yield as a result.
The ergonomic handpiece is lightweight and easy to maneuver, minimizing unnecessary fatigue. This study examined the relation of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome with repetitive wrist motion and heavy, hand-held vibrating tools – a key physical consideration in graft extraction surgery. To avoid this potentially life-altering condition, the Dr.UPunch™ i features a quiet rotary action that minimizes the vibration of the tool.
Video: Dr.UGraft™ Lowers the Risk of Graft Injury Caused by Accidental Punch Misalignment
Some patients may need to conserve hair follicles for future procedures. Once a graft is damaged, it becomes unusable and cannot be replaced. Every single follicle counts.
Below is an example of how conventional punches require exact alignment for graft extraction. Even the most minute misalignment results in an unusable, transected graft.
Patients cannot afford to have their donor grafts wasted, especially in cases where more procedures may be necessary later on in life. Hair transplant practitioners must be mindful of this long-term perspective to reduce the risk of graft injury. The advanced hybrid design of the Zeus’s intelligent punch features a cutting vector that faces away from the delicate follicle shaft and bulb. The only part of the punch that touches the follicular unit is a dull, curved surface.
This one-of-a-kind flared punch design is one of the foremost reasons that the Dr.UGraft™ system is the best choice for both new and experienced practitioners.
Video: The Dr.UGraft™ Intelligent Punch™ Avoids Graft Injury Via Torsion and Impaction
When linear scar free hair transplant surgery is performed using basic extraction tools, grafts can be injured during extraction in ways that may not always be readily apparent. This results in stunted growth rates after the procedure.
Basic hair graft extraction tools can sometimes trap grafts within the walls of the punch. These impacted grafts are generally retrieved manually with the use of forceps, causing irreversible mechanical damage. Many physicians will simply sacrifice the stuck graft, continuing with their extractions. This only buries the impacted graft deeper in the punch, worsening the situation instead of addressing it directly.
Torsion occurs when a partially scored graft is twisted to death while still remaining connected to its natural anchoring attachments. The graft continues to rotate with the punch, destroying the delicate structures keeping it alive. The result is a permanently damaged follicle, unusable in the recipient area. The Dr.UPunch i ™ features a roomed inner structure that provides more space for the grafts without impacting them. This expanded inner chamber also acts as built-in depth control, preventing the punch from cutting too deeply into the area of contention and transecting the graft.
Dr.UGraft™ hair transplant rotary punch greatly reduces the risk of torsional injuries to the graft.
Video: Watch the Dr.UGraft™ Extract Bulky Grafts For Higher Hair Transplant Yield
The video below demonstrates how bulky grafts can be extracted effortlessly with the Dr.UGraft™ System. The fluid integration exponentially improves the odds of positive growth after hair transplant surgery.
In any FUE hair transplant surgery, each graft contributes to constructing coverage to suit the patient’s needs. Donor supplies are always finite; every graft counts.
Dr.UGraft™ Zeus offers the best hair transplant method due to highly specialized features. These include patented punch texturing, which allows for the safe removal of angled hair from other areas of the body aside from the head.
Shorter Procedures with Dr.UGraft™ FUE Swipe Maneuver
The UGraft™ Zeus technology makes it possible for practitioners to collect extracted grafts with a simple swipe. The flared tip of The Intelligent Punch (Dr.UPunch i™) works together with patented graft-control features and fluid irrigation to efficiently and completely separate grafts from their environment, allowing them to be retrieved in bulk with ease. This reduces their exposure to air post-procedure. In traditional FUE procedures, the physician must go over scored grafts individually and remove any remaining attachments to the surrounding tissue.
The Dr.UGraft™ Swipe Maneuver is performed after the scoring phase by wetting a clean piece of gauze and lightly swiping over the donor area to collect the excised grafts. This technique results in shorter procedures overall and minimizes the amount of time that each graft must spend outside of the body.
Grafts scored with the Intelligent Punch often “pop” out of their surrounding tissue, enabling their collection with a simple swipe of gauze – saving time and improving chances of avoiding graft desiccation and overhandling.
Body Hair Restoration with Dr.UGraft™ Hair Transplant System
The ground-breaking engineering of the Dr.UGraft™ System opens the door to life-changing new possibilities for candidates requiring grafts from donor and recipient areas aside from the scalp. This includes beard hair restoration, chest hair restoration, eyelash hair transplants, and eyebrow hair transplants. Unprecedented patented features, such as the upward pulling mechanism and built-in depth control, also contribute to this dramatically expanded range of functionality. Previously, FUE hair restoration providers were limited to donor grafts harvested from the head alone; this limitation also applied to eyelash transplants and eyebrow reconstruction. With the Intelligent Punch™, however, body hair and finer hairs from the nape, legs, and arms can be collected and utilized for more natural-looking results.
A Brief History of the Dr.UGraft™ Zeus: How It Came To Be
So the saying goes: “Create the things you wish existed.” In the vein of this sentiment, The Dr.UGraft Revolution™ was born out of the personal insights, experience, trials, and tribulations of world-renowned Los Angeles-based hair restoration specialist Sanusi Umar, MD.
After himself falling victim to a failed hair transplant, Dr. Umar developed the empathy, knowledge, and drive to take the world of cosmetic hair restoration by storm, inventing cutting-edge solutions that have helped countless patients overcome the limitations of conventional hair restoration tools and practices. His newest version, the UGraft™ Zeus system, represents a breakthrough in FUE technology, making the procedure and life-changing results that come with it accessible to multitudes of individuals who would otherwise have to go without.
After years of research, Dr. Umar’s inventions have caused a paradigm shift in hair transplantation. He makes his innovations available to other physicians in an effort to increase access to simple, safe, and effective hair restoration for all patients. You can learn more about the development of the Dr.UGraft™ system by browsing his impressive list of patents here.
To learn more about Dr. Umar, visit his website.
Frequently Asked Questions – The Dr.UGraft™ Hair Transplant System
Is hair restoration with Dr.UGraft™ a scar-free procedure?
No surgery is truly scar-free – if an incision is made, the skin will need to heal. The Dr.UGraft™, however, certainly comes close with its technology designed to optimize wound healing. Like all FUE hair transplant procedures, grafts are extracted as individual follicular units. This avoids the linear scar often seen on the back of the head after a strip surgery. FUE punches create individual wounds that leave a less noticeable scar compared to the older method of follicular unit strip surgery that creates a linear scar in its wake. The Dr.UGraft with its Intelligent Punch (Upunch i™), however, is designed to impose a puncture wound that is notably less everted than those left by FUE punches of the past. The array of scars after a hair restoration with the Dr.UGraft™ system are typically much less cosmetically significant than those left by competing brands.
Can I use the Dr.UPunch™ with my own handpiece?
Yes. While the Dr.UGraft™ Nurture handpiece offers several advantages for the patient as well as the physician, we do, in fact, offer versions of the Intelligent Punch™ to other handpieces. However, for optimal overall results, we do recommend making an investment in the entire system as a whole. The performance of the punch when used with an un-optimized, generic handpiece would be greatly inferior to what could be expected when the Dr.UPunch i™ is used in combination with the Dr.UGraft™ Nurture handpiece. The nurture handpiece is specifically designed to enhance the function of the Intelligent Punch™ on all levels.
Doesn’t the flared tip of the Dr. UPunch™ create bigger wounds in the donor area?
The Dr.UPunch i™ features a flared tip that does not increase the diameter of the punch. The wound gently stretches around the expanded lumen without cutting further into the tissue. The Dr.UGraft™ creates a less everted wound cavity than traditional FUE punches, which results in scars that heal smaller and flatter in general.
Does the Dr.UGraft™ System work for Afro-textured hair extraction?
Before Dr. U, FUE transplants were simply not available to patients of color due to limitations in the technology available at the time; the tools at hand were simply not able to adequately navigate the unpredictable paths of growth that characterize Afro-textured hair. Dr.UGraft™ is the first-ever system of FUE hair transplant tools capable of safely extracting all types of Afro-textured hair, no matter how tightly-curled and textured it happens to be. The Intelligent Punch™’s unique design, when coupled with the Dr.UGraft™ Nurture handpiece is engineered to fully encompass follicles of any shape and size fully, greatly reducing rates of transection across the board.
What homeopathic supplements can be used to enhance the results of my Dr.UGraft™ FUE Procedure?
Few botanical remedies are officially backed by the FDA when it comes to preventing hair loss and stimulating hair growth. There is, however, some evidence that may indicate a positive correlation between healthy hair and some homeopathic, natural remedies, such as Saw Palmetto, compounds containing Vitamin C and E, and even CBD oil. Dr U has created a natural hair health line called UGro Gashee that uses scientifically sound concepts to restore hair health and boost growing hair
How can I become a Dr.UGraft ™ Doctor?
You can become a Dr.UGraft™ doctor by registering or logging in here and following the instructions on the page. We’re always happy to welcome new practitioners into our growing family.
How do I know if a doctor uses the Dr.UGraft™ System?
Ask your doctor or physician if they offer the Dr.UGraft™ alternative for FUE hair restoration. You can also check our “Find a Dr.UGraft™ Provider Near You” feature to see which doctors in your area utilize our system.
Is it possible for a novice hair surgery practitioner to learn how to use Dr.UGraft™ rotary punches quickly and effectively?
The Dr.UGraft’s™ Intelligent rotary punches, along with the central water irrigation console, are quite conducive to the learning process and make learning how to use the system accessible even to those just beginning on their journey. The learning curve is greatly reduced thanks to a long list of features designed to make the process intuitive, allowing for successful extractions and relatively low transection rates. As discussed above, these include the elimination of the need for complicated depth control measures, solutions that overcome the challenge of graft death via desiccation, a punch tip design that minimizes the likelihood of punch misalignment injuries and promotes a much higher standard of wound healing, and a convenient, hands-free graft retrieval ability unlike anything that’s ever been available in the world of FUE before. Dr.UGraft’s™ thoughtfully engineered features provide a viable, ergonomically sound means of FUE hair transplantation to all types of patients. His vision helps ensure that the needs of a diverse range of candidates are met for better extraction and healing outcomes across the board.