Tsuji Team is Back!

[DepressedByHairLoss]

There is no global health conspiracy. Do people take antibiotics for life, or only until an infection is cleared? - The later. What you are talking about are genetic conditions. Targeting the products of gene expression with a drug is much more feasible today than changing a patients DNA. It's not a hidden agenda against anyone.

Antibiotics are an entirely different animal since they were first introduced well before the big pharmaceutical companies had a stranglehold on the medical community. In those days, some cures to diseases were actually introduced (like for polio) and big pharma wasn't making a total killing off of them.

Also, changing of a person's DNA is not at all required to adequately treat or cure a disease. For example, hair follicle stem cell multiplication could cure hair loss without changing a person's DNA.

I just look at the thousands of drugs out there today and virtually every one of them has to be taken indefinitely for the rest of a person's life, while there are virtually no cures to anything. That is very glaring and suspicious to me.

[walrus]

In those days, some cures to diseases were actually introduced (like for polio)

Those that were initially discovered were simply lower-hanging fruit.

Also, changing of a person's DNA is not at all required to adequately treat or cure a disease. For example, hair follicle stem cell multiplication could cure hair loss without changing a person's DNA.

It isn't required, by your own admission, many treatments require a pill to be taken for the rest of a patients life. I.e. the fundamental 'flaw' in their genes remain.

That is very glaring and suspicious to me.

Mechanisms of drug action are researched and published. If you think something is suspicious - you are free to research it and propose something better. Do you really think scientists work on treatments in a purposely efficient way? As in: 'We have discovered the cure; but we need to go back to the drawing board and find another one that doesn't work so well'.

[CAlex]

originally posted by walrus Do you really think scientists work on treatments in a purposely efficient way? As in: 'We have discovered the cure; but we need to go back to the drawing board and find another one that doesn't work so well'.

actually YES! Thats basically correct. its called planned obsolescence and is found in most medical and almost all consumer products nowadays. Im not sure why so many people on this site are still unable to take the medical aspect out of the pharmaceutical companies.

They are just companies with share holders who demand big returns on their investments.

so back to your quote. Yes researchers and engineers create products, treatments etc and then have to dial back the quality of the product to increase profits.

short video you can watch on the subject walrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU hopefully you watch it. Even if you keep your belief and call me an idiot. watch it

[walrus]

short video you can watch on the subject walrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU hopefully you watch it. Even if you keep your belief and call me an idiot. watch it

Products have lifespans. Product lifespan may even be part of their design specification. In the example in your linked video of the printer. Such devices are mass produced cheaply. In this case, it makes perfect sense that purchasing a complete unit will be more cost effective than buying an obscure part that relatively few people will encounter a problem with. On a somewhat related note, health is moving away from this one size fits all approach into the realm of pharmacogenetics.

Yes researchers and engineers create products, treatments etc and then have to dial back the quality of the product to increase profits.

According to the health conspiracy theories, this isn't just about dialing back efficacy, but rather withholding fundamentally different modes of disease treatment (treated once for life vs pills for life). Tell me, what about conditions for which there are currently no treatments (or cures) for companies to financially gain from? The progress of science is the limiting factor - not a hidden agenda.

[Desmond84]

actually YES! Thats basically correct. its called planned obsolescence and is found in most medical and almost all consumer products nowadays. Im not sure why so many people on this site are still unable to take the medical aspect out of the pharmaceutical companies.

They are just companies with share holders who demand big returns on their investments.

so back to your quote. Yes researchers and engineers create products, treatments etc and then have to dial back the quality of the product to increase profits.

short video you can watch on the subject walrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU hopefully you watch it. Even if you keep your belief and call me an idiot. watch it

What an intriguing documentary. Thanks CAlex for sharing it

The printer story is mind-blowing to say the least. To be honest, a lot of our lecturers always used to say "they have come across tens of life-saving drugs being shelved for the time-being simply because its not the direction that the company wants to go at that point in time or because it is not financially sound to proceed to clinical trials for such an obscure condition."

They always were quite upset about it and couldn't believe that the patent law protected them!

Look at CB-03-01 for example. It was first synthesized in 1998 and by 2001 there were several papers on its potential to revolutionise androgenetic alopecia treatment. Then it was shelved until Cosmo pharmaceutical took over the previous company and decided to develop the product. 15 years since its discovery and we are still waiting for the clinical trials to begin for AGA.

Neosh is another example that I know of with similar events.

I think in the medical industry the cost of drug development being close to 1 billion for 1 product really slows down the advancement of cutting edge medicine. This combined with the long and pain-staking task of conducting a 3-phased trial makes things move at snail's pace! Add patent laws to that and we have a monster to deal with! LOL

All in all, I really do believe there are synthesized drugs being shelved right now that were 'hits' during pre-clinical trials for AGA...they simply were not interested to develop it any further for one reason or another. One reason being Propecia was a marketing failure (for obvious reasons)

[hellouser]

actually YES! Thats basically correct. its called planned obsolescence and is found in most medical and almost all consumer products nowadays. Im not sure why so many people on this site are still unable to take the medical aspect out of the pharmaceutical companies.

They are just companies with share holders who demand big returns on their investments.

so back to your quote. Yes researchers and engineers create products, treatments etc and then have to dial back the quality of the product to increase profits.

short video you can watch on the subject walrus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfzQzGNYaiU hopefully you watch it. Even if you keep your belief and call me an idiot. watch it

I've been familiar with planned obsolescence for a long, LONG time. That takes me back to my Minidisc days. Basically, the portable minidisc recorders were fantastic, but they were designed to break... conveniently after a year... JUST when your warranty expired so you we're forced to go out, buy a new one and give more money to the company. All of the Sony's had a ticking time bomb on them. If only they lasted longer than a year, they would have been amazing.

Its just another means of the corporate world milking us for everything we've got. Theres no empathy for us baldies AT ALL... or anyone else with any other disease.

[CAlex]

Thanks Desmond

TBH this type of consumer manipulation doesn't bother me as much as the medical treatment stuff. Its was thought up as a way to get us put of the depression in the 1900s and has since just taken a life of its own due to the fact it increases profits for basically every company on the planet.

The medical side is just frightening because the same "bottom line" type thinking is applied and the people in charge of the treatment avenues dont give two fu#ks about peoples health.

I cant even begin to imagine how much money has been raised towards curing cancer and what do we have to show for it??? its because A) its now a business itself employing thousands of people (doctors/researchers,event organizers,police, merchandise, and tons of other things) or B) No treatment or cure has been able to be produced that requires long term repeat customers.

Walrus
Im not one of those people who says they KNOW there's a cure for such and such and its being withheld. Im just saying if that turned out to be the case how surprised would you be?

as Desmond pointed out neosh, and how many other things that had shown a lot of promise just end up being abandoned or shelved for no reason in regard to efficiency.

there was actually a drug discovered in 2007 that showed real promise in treating cancer but due to the fact it takes about 100 million to get a treatment to market and this compound was no longer able to be patented no one funded any real research into it. http://www.collective-evolution.com/...re-for-cancer/

reminds me of the old saying that the patient didnt survive the disease. they survived the treatment.

Thats why Im seriously concerned any real breakthrough regarding our plight on here will just be bought up and shelved or substantially dialed back to require longterm use.

[Desmond84]

Just a reminder how imporant DP cells are in the hair germ method! Jahoda's work has nudged this technology one step forward.

So it is time to discuss Team Tokyo in a special thread. Some of this has been taken from hairsite, but all the neccessary information can be found on the links I provided.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120418095011.htm

Of particular note is this:


The bold part actually shows us the ability of stem cells which can grow hair on their own when transplanetd. There was no need to transplant surrounding tissue, and this is great. The new hair follicels managed to connect with arrector pili muscle, epidermis and even nerve fibers!

Also note that the hair follicels used had dermal papilla cells which are being used by Aderans. However, DP cells had the help from adult epithelial stem cells. I believe this is the reason why Replicel had such bad results. Dermal sheath cup cells need the help, something to guide them to connect to the surrounding tisue (epidermis, nerve fibbers, arrector pili muscle).

Now nerve fibers themselves are of importance in hair growth. The following excerpt has been taken from: Stress and the Hair Follicle: Exploring the
Connections, Vladimir A. Botchkarev, found at:

http://www.forhair.com/pdfs/stressAndHairLoss.pdf

As we can see regardless of stress, nerve fibers also play a role together with arrector pili muscle and epidermis and other tissues. Now it seems to me that what Replicel and Aderans are missing in all of these is adult epithelial stem cells. Which can be isolated.
It is viable: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21490579.
Ofcourse the question is which adult stem cells, and then how to combine them with DP or DSC cells. Although I am cheering for DP cells.

I am a layman and I might be wrong at some things, but this is how I understood it.

In the end some bad news : so far no human trials have been announced.
But at least it shows us that Dermal papilla cells might work, and those rumours of moderate growth from Aderans seem more plausible now.

If anyone has any news or more detailed information please post. Of course I welcome all opinions and criticism.

EDIT: Also note that when I am talking about Aderans and Replicel I am saying of somehow combining the adult epithelial stem cells with dermal papilla cells, but the researchers at Tsuji-lab have actually bioengineered a hair follicle which is different and I believe more complex, and Aderans and Replicel can't do that yet, however just combining the above mentioned cells might be benefical for regrowth.

A big shout out to Dr Jahoda and Christiano for all their efforts

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131021104242.htm

[moore]

good

1) Desmond, thank you once again
2) Maybe Replicel and Aderans will merge one day
3) Maybe stem cells could be implanted not randomly in the skin, but in follicles already present but miniaturized. Will anybody try this, please?

[Desmond84]

1) Desmond, thank you once again
2) Maybe Replicel and Aderans will merge one day
3) Maybe stem cells could be implanted not randomly in the skin, but in follicles already present but miniaturized. Will anybody try this, please?

No worries You're welcome!

Aderans tried the stem cells idea in over 450 subjects with different protocols. Non of it produced anything to brag about.

Dr Gho tried injecting Progenitor cells that are meant to be missing in balding zone and also failed to produce cosmetic results!

Replicel tried similar technique and also got only an avaerage of 6% increase in density.

I personally think single cell therapy is a bit like alchemy. Earth shattering if achieved but ends up being nothing but a let down.

We need state of the art bioengineering techniques using 3D scaffolds combined with correct signals and growth factors to produce a fully functional organ. We need to mimic the environment of an embryo within a lab setting to reproduce an actual hair follicle.

These need time but are not a pipe dream. They're a work in progress and will be easily achieved in the next 10-15 years. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done to get there though.

Arashi is right in saying "we have nothing in the current pipeline that will produce significant regrowth"...we are at least 10 years away from fully reversing MPB in a clinical setting. What's important though is we know it is coming, whereas back in 2002 we only had Dr Washeniks optimism as proof!

[Cookie]

Anyone know if this technique cause cancer? Can any expert here answer?

[HairBane]

Anyone know if this technique cause cancer? Can any expert here answer?

Definitely causes cancer. That's just something you have to weigh up for yourself. Hair + cancer or Bald + alive.

Just kidding. I'm guessing they're approaching this treatment with a safety-first attitude. It'll have to go through trials to prove it's safe. There's no particular reason it should cause cancer.

[cichlidfort]

Anyone know if this technique cause cancer? Can any expert here answer?

I doubt they would put a product out that would cause cancer.

[Desmond84]

Another major hurdle out of the way

__________________________________________________ ______________

Scientist’s discovery advances Induced pluripotent stem-cell research


Thanks to a major breakthrough by one of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s most promising researchers, clinical trials based on stem cell research – which could lead to technologies that can repair damaged tissue, treat autoimmune diseases and even grow transplant organs – could be underway within the next 10 years.

Dr. Jacob Hanna was in Toronto last week as the guest of honour at a Weizmann Canada event held at the Beer Academy called “Revealing a Piece of the Stem Cell Puzzle,” where he shared the latest news about his team’s discovery of a protein that makes the process of converting adult stem cells to embryonic stem cells dramatically more efficient and stable.

In an interview with The CJN, Hanna explained that his research builds on the work of Shinya Yamanaka, a Japanese stem-cell researcher who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2012 for his discovery that adult cells can be converted to stem cells.

“He was able to show that we can take a skin cell and by putting in four genes that are normally expressed in the early embryo, we can reprogram, convert the cell all the way back to the start… to what we call the embryonic stem cell state,” said Hanna, a 34-year-old Arab-Israeli from the Galilee who has been working at the Weizmann Institute as an independent scientist since 2011.

Embryonic stem cells are crucially important, because they have yet to be programmed to become a specific type of cell.

Hanna said that while the current process of producing induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells solves a lot of ethical issues, because the process doesn’t require using an egg or fetal material, it’s very inefficient – it can take up to four weeks to produce an iPS cell and the success rate is about 0.1 per cent. Scientists have also found that it’s very difficult to keep iPS cells in their unprimed state.

Because the process is so slow and inefficient, Hanna and his team realized that resetting the cells to their embryonic state wasn’t enough.

In the Sept. 18 issue of Nature, Hanna outlined an important breakthrough discovered by his team to address those issues.

“We identified a protein called MBD3. This protein acts like a brake in a car,” said Hanna, who has won numerous awards and was named one of the top 35 young innovators in 2010 by Technology Review magazine.

Hanna and his team discovered that removing the protein from the adult cells dramatically sped up the process and improved efficiency.

“When we dismantle this brake, we can get up from 0.1 per cent to 100 per cent… in six days,” he said.

“This brings us closer to a vision of a patient who shows up and we need to quickly make cells and they quickly need to be high quality and then we can use them. So, I really think this is a step forward in an important direction,” he said.

“As the population is aging more and people live longer, and we have new diseases, and people want to have a higher quality of life, there is a great need for tissue replacement. The idea is, how do we come up with a reproducible, accessible source of tissues for replacement that will also not be rejected [by the body] – basically, genetically identical to the patient?”

By reprogramming mature, adult stem cells to create iPS cells, which would be grown in the lab to be differentiated into many different cell types, these iPS cells can be used to treat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and could potentially grow transplant organs.

Because the process requires the use of a patient’s own mature cells, it would drastically reduce the chances of the body rejecting a transplant.

When asked how long it could take for the general public to be able to benefit from this technology, he laughed, saying, “I’m not a prophet. But considering the rapid pace of this field, within the next five to 10 years, we could start seeing valid and serious clinical trials based on these technologies.”

Another important element of Hanna’s research, which was also featured in his recently published paper, is working to understand why mouse embryonic stem cells are easier to preserve in their unprimed state than human ones.

“We are for the first time, able to make mice, animals that are chimeric [composed of two or more kinds of genetically distinct cells]… with human tissue,” he explained.

“You now can have a mouse who has low levels of human liver or human blood cells in that mouse, and I think that is very exciting because it gives us a platform perhaps to look at human tissue formation in a living organism. I think that is one of the next frontiers for our field.”

- See more at: http://cjnews.com/privacy-policy?q=n....f7ZhDk2i.dpuf

[Arashi]

I reported about that in september, you even replied in that thread desmond

http://www.baldtruthtalk.com/showthread.php?t=14152

Great news indeed. Now they just need a find a way to differentiate iPS cells into DP cells, and hairloss is a thing of the past.