Reason why there is still no cure in 2013 and the solution

[thechamp]

My mate moved to Perth and he says it's ridiculously expensive

Hhshah your mate is right we pay 11 bucks for a pint of beer in most nice pubs

[Desmond84]

Yeah man...I'd love to go to Perth. Got a few friends from Perth and they've only got good stories to tell! Sydney's great except for all these damn bushfires...its smokey everyday and our throats are burning all the time! I just feel so sorry for all those poor souls who lost everything up at Blue mountains

[brunobald]

Here's another idea:

"We know that embryonic and foetal skin can repair itself without any scarring + with 100% hair regeneration when damaged"

"Histogen believeded the reason for this rapid tissue recovery is the hypoxic conditions the foetal tissue exists in. SO they cultured fibroblast cells in hypoxic conditions (3% O2) and the fibroblasts went crazy! They started upregulating over 5000 genes and mass-producing growth factors that are vital to skin and hair repair!"

So, now lets look at DP cells. They are known as "Fibroblast-like" cells with some multipotent properties. SO why don't we try and culture DP cells in HYPOXIC conditions using Jahoda's scaffold?

Could this increase inductive potential of DP? We need to put all these ideas together and send it off to Jahoda & Christiano!

I was thinking about that driving home from work What do you guys think?

The problem is they most likely will not have the funding to follow an idea like this through to conclusion. What we need is funding to recruit potential PDH students to carry out this work, and for that we need a properly equipped lab.

This place is 40min drive from my house http://www.crm.ed.ac.uk/training
Places like this may be able to offer lab space if we present the projects in a structured way that would gain the PHD's a credible body of work to justify a PHD.

Students working in Isolation like this all over the world is not as ideal as a crowfunded central lab would be. That way it would offer anyone instrested in joining the project social support and like minds to bounce ideas off.

[garethbale]

Yeah man...I'd love to go to Perth. Got a few friends from Perth and they've only got good stories to tell! Sydney's great except for all these damn bushfires...its smokey everyday and our throats are burning all the time! I just feel so sorry for all those poor souls who lost everything up at Blue mountains

Desmond

Do you constantly have to watch out for funnel webs and huntsmans ?

[HARIRI]

Guys check this out. I got it from Replicel :-)

http://www.replicel.com/stem-cell-technology-used-in-search-for-the-holy-grail-of-hair-treatments-a-cure-for-baldness/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=stem-cell-technology-used-in-search-for-the-holy-grail-of-hair-treatments-a-cure-for-baldness

[NeedHairASAP]

If you guys actually rase money... you dont need to hire novice PhDs./..

you could outsource to a professional clincal trial compnay

e.g.

http://incresearch.com/Global-Contract-Research-Organization.aspx

I am not endorsing, nor do i know anything about, the above company. Just an example to show you guys these places exist... and can probably execute what you want more efficiently than putting the thing together piece by piece yourselves... you just need the right advisers (e.g. nigam and his network he's building) ot find the right questions to ask-- and how to determine the answers (e.g. what tests and how) then you need to raise the money and do it.

[Thinning87]

Great!!! Oh no wait it doesn't actually say anything new

[Kiwi]

Desmond... could we do something like this?

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/10/gamers-help-solve-a-ten-year-hiv-puzzle-in-ten-days/

[istalberta]

A phd student who is currently undertaking DP Cells related work

Hello to everyone here , very nice thread and an upbeat approach to hairloss . I like it .
As it happens I am currently talking to BioMolecular Dept . of a credible University here in İstanbul .

What would you ask this phd student to do in his research ?

İdeas welcome .

[Sogeking]

Desmond brother, thank you for the explanations.
Okay next thing. Actually Dr. Nigam said that Dr. Christiano is trying to find the master gene which will kickstart the dp cell into production of new hair follicle (neogenesis) together with all accompanying parts (lack of a better word), like arrector pili muscle, sebaceous glands with epidermal and mesenchymal layers.

So maybe putting dp cells inside a 3D spheroid hypoxic conditions is a good idea indeed. Since it pushes over 5000 genes and there is a good probability the master gene is in them. However this is all speculaton and one would probably have to contact Dr. Christiano in a helpful, polite way. But then again they might have already thought of that.

As for Replicel, well, they are relying on Dermal sheath cup cells. Which for me is very questionable. I mean we know that by adding fibroblast cells we might start neogenesis in a dp cells, but the same might not be true for DSC cells.

Besides their first level results proved safety which was their aim, but effectivity proved to be very low.

[Axel]

Crowdfunding I am more than willing to spearhead but only if there's help. There was some good progress between myself and Axel a couple months ago but he's fallen off the map... so I've been stuck.

A little info about me: I'm a 10+ year veteran in graphic design, digital media, marketing and advertising. Anyone working with me would be in good hands... I just need collaboration and dedication. There's too much work to do on your own with this kind of initiative

Hey bro.. You know I'm game

I think everybody is realising how powerful a platform like this would be. I mean, you can read about it here in this thread, in the Nigam's threads, Spencer did talk about it, on other boards the people is also starting to think about how nice it would be... everybody is talking "crowdfunding". And that's a really positive initial step.

Technology part is easy, I already show you. Graphical part is also easy, also show you. The hard part is legal/regulation and putting together a nice team to execute the idea. Let's just try to take the correct steps on this fronts as well.

[Desmond84]

BTT hearts JAPAN

OMG GUYS

The Japanese cracked the DP culturing problem in 2012 (most of the culturing problems anyways)! Somehow we missed it!!!

We have to get Christiano/Jahoda to collaborate with Dr Ohyama of Keio Univerity! These guys figured out how to mimic the epidermis making DP cells believe they are still within the skin even though they were harvested!!!

Here's the study:

Restoration of the intrinsic properties of human dermal papilla in vitro

Manabu Ohyama*, Tetsuro Kobayashi, Takashi Sasaki, Atsushi Shimizu and Masayuki Amagai
Department of Dermatology, Keio University School of Medicine, 35 Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan

Accepted 1 May 2012
Journal of Cell Science 125, 4114–4125
2012. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd
doi: 10.1242/jcs.105700

http://jcs.biologists.org/content/125/17/4114.full.pdf

Summary
The dermal papilla (DP) plays pivotal roles in hair follicle morphogenesis and cycling. However, characterization and/or propagation of human DPs have been unsatisfactory because of the lack of efficient isolation methods and the loss of innate characteristics in vitro.

We hypothesized that culture conditions sustaining the intrinsic molecular signature of the human DP could facilitate expansion of functional DP cells. To test this, we first characterized the global gene expression profile of microdissected, non-cultured human DPs.

We performed a ‘two-step’ microarray analysis to exclude the influence of unwanted contaminants in isolated DPs and successfully identified 118 human DP signature genes, including 38 genes listed in the mouse DP signature. The bioinformatics analysis of the DP gene list revealed that WNT, BMP and FGF signaling pathways were upregulated in intact DPs and addition of 6-bromoindirubin-39-oxime, recombinant BMP2 and basic FGF to stimulate these respective signaling pathways resulted in maintained expression of in situ DP signature genes in primarily cultured human DP cells. More importantly, the exposure to these stimulants restored normally reduced DP biomarker expression in conventionally cultured DP cells. Cell growth was moderate in the newly developed culture medium.

However, rapid DP cell expansion by conventional culture followed by the restoration by defined activators provided a sufficient number of DP cells that demonstrated characteristic DP activities in functional assays. The study reported here revealed previously unreported molecular mechanisms contributing to human DP properties and describes a useful technique for the investigation of human DP biology and hair follicle bioengineering.

In summary, we have elucidated the molecular signature of intact human anagen DP cells. This guided the development of DPAC for the efficient in vitro expansion of human DP cells that retain their intrinsic properties. The present study sheds new light on the biological properties of human DP cells and implies a novel strategy for supplying sufficient functional human DP cells for the development of molecules acting on in vivo DPs or for regenerative medicine-based approaches to treat intractable hair loss disorders.

__________________________________________________ _______________

We are so much closer than we anticipated! We just have to make sure both teams are aware of each others work! We have to test the cultured Japanese DP cells on a foreskin grafted on a mice...if we get fully functional hair follicles...the entire balding community can celebrate. Because ladies and gentlemen, this curse is over!

I am more than certain, Tsuji lab is aware of these recent developments and I can guarantee you they are testing these DP cells in their labs as we speak

[Desmond84]

NW1 HERE WE COME

[thechamp]

NW1 HERE WE COME

How long you thinking till this curse is over?

[Desmond84]

How long you thinking till this curse is over?

Champ If Tsuji lab is really working on this technique like I think they are, and the DP cells have actually maintained their inductive properties, I am more than certain they'll be ready for Phase 1 by 2016! With regulations changing in Japan regarding regenerative medicine, you might be able to have this therapy available by 2019 in Japan...

Lets not forget, we were expecting Tsuji sometimes after 2022-2023! This is great news