7th World Congress for Hair Research (2013)

[One]

Dr Nigam now what do you offer to us for to come back from NW7 to Nw 2-1?

[drnigams]

Hello Desmond,
Just to tell you that .. it is Dr.Gerd who was the main investigator and the one who created a denovo microfollicle in vitro..and Laudster was his proffesor for the study.
Dr Gerd was there through out in the congress with me and had presented a poster titled."Long term organ culture of intact hair follicle in a chip based perfusion system"
Yes they are into many other research apart from hair follicle.
Hope fully dr gerd will be an independent consultant to my lab as our final draft agreement is drafted,in days to come..
It is not always the ex. big names in research, but but a few younger researchers have come out with better ideas in the congress...
But both the senior and junior researchers are doing excellent job,and are very open about sharing their research.
I feel it is only the regulatory restrictions which is ..the main block on the road to MPB cure.
Desmond, you must have also noticed that excpt few majority of the hair transplant surgeons were missing from the conference(though i met cooley,shapiro,Farjao and few others...but other big ht surgeons were missing.
I think by now people should understand that HT surgeons are not interested in stemcell,Hm therapies as that may be a threat to their practice.
As STEMCELL work is mostly performed at labs by biotechs.
There were two papers on follicular bisection and subsequent regrowth of dermal papilla..thus supporting the donor doubling cases i presented on the forum.
After visiting the congress..it's my observation that forum discussions among few members are nothing short of discussions and knowledge of researchers....
Well,I am fortunate to benefit from both the groups...

Btw guys, don't you find it odd that Dr. Lauster did not attend the Hair Research Congress or the International Investigative Dermatology conference!?!

DO you think he really has moved on? If so, that's a real shame

[Artista]

Morbo,,your saying that MY explanation is not substantiated? No problem Morbo, ,,good luck in life my friend.

[Morbo]

Morbo,,your explanation is not substantiated.

Well neither is yours. If you actually had any substance or hard evidence of a future cure, I'd say it's safe to say that baldness is a thing of the past. Until than, nope sorry. But I forgot, since Replicel released those neatly colored 'the human body' presentations - up the level of 5 year olds to attract investors - TBT is filled will haircells bio engineers and chemical scientists. Heck, if you gave them the right tools and a lab, they might grow the hairs themselves.

The comparative that you had used in the field of cloning is way off..sorry to tell you.
You do know that there are different cloning technologies dont you?
'Dolly' was 'created' by the use of "Reproductive Cloning" using nuclear DNA and to clone humans in that realm would be highly unethical and not accepted , ever!

Well, I could have used space travel, AI, plasma technology, robotics and God forbid time travel. I'm not even talking about cloning in particular.
Whenever these discoveries are made, the sky is the limit and all these hypotheses and theories come into play. Just because they understand the human brain, that doesn't mean they can replicate it. Scientists know for years what 'can' cause cancer and how to either slow it down or sometimes fight. Yet till this date there is no effective cure. Till this date researchers only still know half about baldness.

Don't get me the wrong way, I know I sound like a dick, but if there were a cure out there I'd obviously be the first to thank the Gods. But in truth I've been reading baldness cure articles for 3,5 years now and honestly I don't see anything on the horizon that's more waterproof than the one we had the day before.

[Artista]

Morbo,,your explanation is not substantiated.
The comparative that you had used in the field of cloning is way off..sorry to tell you.
You do know that there are different cloning technologies dont you?
'Dolly' was 'created' by the use of "Reproductive Cloning" using nuclear DNA and to clone humans in that realm would be highly unethical and not accepted , ever!
Also, due to the inefficiency of animal cloning (only about 1 or 2 viable offspring for every 100 experiments) and the lack of understanding about 'reproductive cloning' also makes it to be extremely unethical.
So to use that view of yours ("That doesn't mean we will be cloning humans in the coming 33 years") is completely off base.
The type and technology of hair cloning is not in the same realm or category.

[Morbo]

Well that comparison is tenuous, to be honest; these companies have grown hair on human scalp, at least to some extent. The evidence base is there to work from. It isn't entirely conjecture.

It really is not. The only basis people are using to underpin their claims for a cure is that "the next 5 years are not the past 5". I'm pretty sure that was general consensus as well when Minoxodil was released.
Researchers do know a lot more than they did 10 years ago, but on a long term the actual cure could still be at least 20 years away.

[SoClose]

I don't mean to crush people's spirits because for most people these vague and illustrious reports on baldness cures are their only means of hope and dealing with their baldness, but on the 5th of July 1996 or exactly 17 years ago researchers cloned the first sheep named 'Doly'. That doesn't mean we will be cloning humans in the coming 33 years.

Well that comparison is tenuous, to be honest; these companies have grown hair on human scalp, at least to some extent. The evidence base is there to work from. It isn't entirely conjecture.

[Morbo]

But it's just utterly BS. Since 2 years we have people working around with out of stem cells bio engineered organs. Team Tokyo already succeeded at doing the same for hair follicles. If you neglect all that, sure you'll say it will ALWAYS be 5-10 years. But it's just a very dumb way of reasoning.

I don't mean to crush people's spirits because for most people these vague and illustrious reports on baldness cures are their only means of hope and dealing with their baldness, but on the 5th of July 1996 or exactly 17 years ago researchers cloned the first sheep named 'Doly'. That doesn't mean we will be cloning humans in the coming 33 years.

[UK Boy]

OK guys, as most of you know, we were unable to send a representative on behalf of the BTT to the Congress! So we need to wait a few more days to get more information about what was discussed at the Congress... So plz be patient


I personally have been blown away by the amount of effort Dr Nigam has put in to keep us up to date, which is very refreshing...a big shout out to him for understanding how much pain we are all in and how much it would mean to us to find out what was discussed!

Now, for those waiting on updates for Histogen, Aderans & Replicel please note the following:

1) Histogen & Replicel will be presenting their 12 month Phase I/IIa results on 8th of May...I am more than certain that within minutes of their presentation, all major media outlets will also release their findings...so that's a big plus for those that are not attending the "Investigative Dermatology Conference".

2) Aderans: Unfortunately Aderans will NOT be presenting their Phase 2 results at this conference as we discussed earlier. We managed to find the Abstract of their presentation and it is completely irrelevant! So plz, don't be dismayed once we find out their presentation had nothing to do with their Phase 2 trials...I myself am VERY disappointed and everyday seem to have less and less faith in their Ji Gami method! But that's life...

As a good friend of us on BTT mentioned: Thomas Edison once said "I have not failed 700 times. I've succeeded in proving 700 ways how not to build a lightbulb"...sadly that's Aderans in a nushell...

I think it's wrong to get down about Aderans just because they're not presenting results at this meeting. I mean there's plenty of other reasons to be down about Aderans such as their presentation from the MESA last year but I personally never expected them to be releasing results at this meeting. I think you're great Desmond but I think you got carried away and got everyone convinced that they were presenting and therefore must have great news. To be honest Aderans only finished their final phase 2 in April, I don't know which date exactly but it could well have been the last days of April and therefore only a week ago. They are probably still collecting and analysing results so we should never have expected to hear anything before late May/June. You can class Aderans as a fail for a number of reasons but but class them as a fail just because they aren't presenting anything about results at this meeting - that was never even on the table.

[Arashi]

Anyone who has read hair loss forums for more than a year knows why UK_ feels like he does. Everything is always five years away and always a disappointment.

But it's just utterly BS. Since 2 years we have people working around with out of stem cells bio engineered organs. Team Tokyo already succeeded at doing the same for hair follicles. If you neglect all that, sure you'll say it will ALWAYS be 5-10 years. But it's just a very dumb way of reasoning.

[Pentarou]

Anyone who has read hair loss forums for more than a year knows why UK_ feels like he does. Everything is always five years away and always a disappointment.

[hellouser]

Maybe we should get women to be vocal about it? We all know nobody gives a fvck about mens health. That could speed things up.

[UK_]

I'm not partial either way. Aderans has been at it a long time so we're all curious to see their final data, and a Phase 3 announcement is gonna light a fire under everyone else's arse.

As far as Dr. Gho versus ARI, I think thats an apples and oranges comparison because you're talking about a surgical procedure versus a mass market drug or biologic. It takes almost a billion dollars and over a decade to create new a mass market solution.

To me, thats why Dr. Gho choose the route he did, but I'm sure there are a lot of ways you can look at that so thats just wild speculation on my part.

Replicel have stated they have avoided a whole host of legal hurdles b/c their process utilises the patients own cells - it's just the multiplication process that holds safety issues so technically these treatments should get to the market faster than a drug and at a far smaller cost.

[UK_]

Nah I disagree. I think what Aderans is doing is very exciting and I strongly believe it will yield results one day. However as with all these things you've just got to temper expectations. I'm expecting either Histogen, Aderans and/or Replicel to be available in 5 years and within 10 years I expect a real cure like Team Tokyo's. Although always very difficult to predict, I think based on current progress this should be the timeframe to think in.

Its funny, because that's exactly what we were saying 5 years ago... and then 5 years before that.... and then 5 years before that... and so on and so on.

Team Tokyo is just whako science that will be 15 - 20 years away if we're lucky, thats like being sentenced to 15 years in prison for somoene who is starting to bald. What a complete pile of horse shit.

[StinkySmurf]

I'm not partial either way. Aderans has been at it a long time so we're all curious to see their final data, and a Phase 3 announcement is gonna light a fire under everyone else's arse.

As far as Dr. Gho versus ARI, I think thats an apples and oranges comparison because you're talking about a surgical procedure versus a mass market drug or biologic. It takes almost a billion dollars and over a decade to create new a mass market solution.

To me, thats why Dr. Gho choose the route he did, but I'm sure there are a lot of ways you can look at that so thats just wild speculation on my part.