Could Histogen cause serious health risks

[alanrudy]

Hello, accidently posted in wrong forum so wanted to post to Histogen forum and maybe get a response...
Don't mean to be a downer for Histogen, just want to know if anyone out there who is familiar with the science behind Histogen that can add any info on the safety/risks of Histogen and Wnt proteins. I am not very knowledgeable with it or about science in general, but just reading the wikipedia page of "wnt signaling" gives me some worry...

"Traditionally, it is assumed that Wnt proteins can act as Stem Cell Growth Factors, promoting the maintenance and proliferation of stem cells.[32]
However, a recent study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine revealed that Wnt appears to block proper communication, with the Wnt signaling pathway having a negative effect on stem cell function. Thus, in the case of muscle tissue, the misdirected stem cells, instead of generating new muscle cells (myoblasts), differentiated into scar-tissue-producing cells called fibroblasts. The stem cells failed to respond to instructions, actually creating wrong cell types."

Elsewhere, I also heard that there's no telling what will be the longer term 5-10 years of Histogen's effect and there are some very serious possible health risks. Is there a risk that Histogen could even get past Phase 3 without issues and then the formula producing dangerous results in subjects years down the line?

[Pate]

There are several different wnt proteins. Some have been associated with cancer and only some are desireable for hair growth.

Histogen has a special process whereby they can enrich HSC in some wnts and other growth factors, and suppress almost to the point of eliminating the ones with negative effects.

So that's the good news - if bad wnts are identified they can be largely removed from HSC.

The question is whether they know enough about the various wnts to know what the long-term effects of them all are.

It is definitely not impossible that there will be long-term side effects, as there could be with any drug or process. But with proper pre-clinical work, not just by Histogen but by the wider scientific community studying wnts, and then with proper trials, they should know enough about wnts to be confident that HSC won't have serious long-term sides, IMO.

I don't know what article you are reading but the first thing you should do is find out whether the main wnt used by Histogen (which I think is Wnt 7a) is the same wnt they are talking about in that Stanford study.

To some extent, as the saying goes: the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Histogen has already proven they can regrow hair. If wnts were causing stem cells to develop into the wrong type of cells such as fibroblasts, we wouldn't be seeing new hair growth.

[alanrudy]

Wow, thanks for the great reply Pate. As I admitted, I know very little about science but was just wondering if even with HSC growing hair, if there were some potential long term side effects. I hope your opinion is right and they will be confident that HSC doesn't produce any serious long term sides.

[UK_]

Pate is right, WNT proteins have been around for nearly 40 years, yet there exists no research that shows WNT7A being capable of causing cancer. Histogen would not have conducted trials if there was ANY evidence that contradicts this statement, however the whole reason we have a trial is to judge safety - so we will have to wait and see.

I doubt there will be sides with Replicel or Aderans because all they are doing is extracting and multiplying your own cells, Replicel increased their dose in phase 1 substantially to prove safety and the results didnt even show localised inflammation let alone tumour formation.

[alanrudy]

Awesome reply, thanks UK. Do you know how long study of WNT7A protein has been going on? Also, good to hear about probable safety for Replicel and Aderans. Pate or UK, based on your guys opinion, what current treatments would you guys recommend that would have low risk of side effects?

[Pate]

Considering there are only two treatments FDA approved, fin and minox, and we know fin has side effects, that just leaves minox.

Minox can have sides too of course but they are usually minor.

For grey-market, off-label or future treatments, bimatoprost should be low sides.

I'm also hopeful that CB-03-01 will be low sides too even though it is an anti-androgen, because its systemic absorption is (apparently) extremely low.

My feeling is that the best hopes for future treatments are bimatoprost and CB-03-01 for maintaining hair or early stages of hairloss. Histogen is the best chance for regrowing more advanced NWs.

[alanrudy]

Thanks Pate! Through my research, I have been coming to many of those same conclusions, but very glad to see it confirmed. It will be interesting to see what sides will be listed for Bimatoprost for hair because most of the sides currently listed are for eye problems, which is related to it's use for eyelashes. That would be great for CB-03-01 because I took Propecia for a year but stopped. It was hard to tell whether I had any benefit, but I'm sure I had some loss of libido and although I couldn't confirm exactly any issues with the other sides, I'm generally anti-drug so I went off of it based on not wanting any issues long term. Honestly, based on all my reading, you and UK_ are the most sound, reasoned, knowledgeable people here so I was lucky to have you both respond.