Clinical trial starting using Jahoda's method !

[southern]

Papers by Sung-Jan Lin

Scalable production of controllable dermal papilla spheroids on PVA surfaces and the effects of spheroid size on hair follicle regeneration.:

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/232647934_Scalable_production_of_controllable_dermal_papilla_spheroids_on_PVA_surfaces_and_the_effects_of_spheroid_size_on_hair_follicle_regeneration

Therapeutic strategy for hair regeneration: hair cycle activation, niche environment modulation, wound-induced follicle neogenesis, and stem cell engineering.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/234068193_Therapeutic_strategy_for_hair_regeneration_hair_cycle_activation_niche_environment_modulation_wound-induced_follicle_neogenesis_and_stem_cell_engineering

[southern]

It seems this people know what they're doing...

[James7]

Well, again, the only group of researchers who succeeded at culturing DP cells was Jahoda's group, so if the article is right, then they'll indeed use Jahoda's method. Of course the journalist could be wrong though, who knows ..

Yeah it's quite possible they got it wrong or mixed up.
Apparently the person leading the Taiwan study is Sung-Jan Lin.

I've found some links that shows that either Sung-Jan Lin may know Jahoda, or that they have a mutual friend who is a research scientist who has worked with both of them. So there might be some connection there, who knows?

[Arashi]

Sung-Jan Lin is the Clinical Trial principal Investigator

This is a patent under his name from 2013:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8492112.PN.&OS=PN/8492112&RS=PN/8492112

"Disclosed is a method for the manufacture of microtissues, comprising the steps of: providing a biomaterial substrate; simultaneously seeding a plurality of dermal papilla (DP) cells and keratinocytes on the substrate surface with a predetermined ratio and cellular density; co-culturing for a predetermined period; and carrying the keratinocytes to the substrate surface by the dermal papilla cells, aggregating and finally form a plurality of keratinocyte-dermal papilla cell microtissues, wherein the dermal papilla cells are located in a center of the microtissue and the keratinocytes are sorted to a surface of the microtissue, and the keratinocytes are adult keratinocytes. The method can help to simply and economize the procedures for production of folliculoid microtissues with high-throughput. Once microtissues are transplanted to skin of subject, hair follicles can be regenerated."

"The inventor of the present invention has previously reported that EVAL, containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains, is a unique polymer that is able to enhance the self-assembly for DP cells into spheroidal microtissues that are able to induce HF morphogenesis"

Wow nice find !! This is actually extremely interesting. This guy obviously has been working on the same subject as Jahoda and has also developed a method of 3d culturing of DP cells. This is therefore even more interesting than just copying Jahoda's method, because this might actually even yield a better result.

[Desmond84]

My God. Is this for real! Have these guys also come up with a method to culture DP in a spheroid?

I'm starting to sound like a broken record but this is another example of our exponential undrestanding of tissue engineering and developmental biology. And to top it all off we're entering human trials. This journey is rough but dammit its so exciting

How can people be so pessimistic at these crucial times is beyond me! I think we'll be approaching the event horizon by 2016 and after that the sky is the limit in terms of hair regeneration.

Eat healthy, exercise and live like everyday is your last day on earth guys. Don't worry so much about your hair. The solution will be here by the end of this decade and then cherish that hair. GEL IT UP. GET FANCY HAIRCUTS.
Dye it. Grow a mohawk Whatever you want. Just know that a solution is coming. Don't let the next 10 years go to waste because you were waiting!

[carvo]

well, my english is bad to contact to PhD. But if someone ask him should be good.
This is the contact info that appears at the study in clinicaltrials.gov.

Contacts
Contact: Sung-Jan Lin, MD PhD +886-2-23123456 ext 5323 jsjl2000tw@yahoo.com.tw

[vcity]

Those 400 people should be 400 of us here in the forums. Lord knows we've made more of an effort to warrant a treatment than many others.

That's exactly the reason why they can't.

We're all taking different drugs already to treat our hair loss, they need people who are not taking anything (for the most part).

[southern]

Arashi and Desmond, you should read the patent I posted. It's really interesting!

[Thinning87]

Well I guess it seems this is happening for real. It would be nice to see more news coverage just to be sure!

[Sogeking]

Well I guess it seems this is happening for real. It would be nice to see more news coverage just to be sure!

Agreed, but IMHO this is the best news I heard in the last 2 years!

[southern]

Effectiveness of current treatments for severe cases of hair loss or alopecia is limited, however, the method of the present invention uses autograft cells for mass production of microtissues with inducible HF neogenesis feature in vitro, wherein intracellular contact surface is increased to facilitate induction of specific gene expressions of adult keratinocytes toward elevated efficiency of HF differentiation during process of the three dimensional keratinocyte-DP cell microtissues formation. In the aspect of production process, only small amount of DP cells and keratinocytes are required for large scale production. These cells are mass generated and then cultivated on an EVAL membrane to form microtisssues, in which an EVAL membrane is biocompatible with no harm to human health. In addition, the method of the present invention does not require precision instruments, and no complicate techniques and manufacturing processes are involved, so that production cost can be effectively cost down. More importantly, the present invention has proved that the microtissues, when transplanted to individuals (nude mice), can develop into HF and hair sheath effectively so as to be applied to HF regeneration for the treatment of hair loss and alopecia.*

[Atum]

That's exactly the reason why they can't.

We're all taking different drugs already to treat our hair loss, they need people who are not taking anything (for the most part).

I'm not. The only thing i take are vitamins, amino acids, green tea, msm and gonna try CBD and manuka antiseptic creme after derma rolling.

[Desmond84]

Sung-Jan Lin is the Clinical Trial principal Investigator

This is a patent under his name from 2013:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=8492112.PN.&OS=PN/8492112&RS=PN/8492112

"Disclosed is a method for the manufacture of microtissues, comprising the steps of: providing a biomaterial substrate; simultaneously seeding a plurality of dermal papilla (DP) cells and keratinocytes on the substrate surface with a predetermined ratio and cellular density; co-culturing for a predetermined period; and carrying the keratinocytes to the substrate surface by the dermal papilla cells, aggregating and finally form a plurality of keratinocyte-dermal papilla cell microtissues, wherein the dermal papilla cells are located in a center of the microtissue and the keratinocytes are sorted to a surface of the microtissue, and the keratinocytes are adult keratinocytes. The method can help to simply and economize the procedures for production of folliculoid microtissues with high-throughput. Once microtissues are transplanted to skin of subject, hair follicles can be regenerated."

"The inventor of the present invention has previously reported that EVAL, containing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains, is a unique polymer that is able to enhance the self-assembly for DP cells into spheroidal microtissues that are able to induce HF morphogenesis"

Effectiveness of current treatments for severe cases of hair loss or alopecia is limited, however, the method of the present invention uses autograft cells for mass production of microtissues with inducible HF neogenesis feature in vitro, wherein intracellular contact surface is increased to facilitate induction of specific gene expressions of adult keratinocytes toward elevated efficiency of HF differentiation during process of the three dimensional keratinocyte-DP cell microtissues formation. In the aspect of production process, only small amount of DP cells and keratinocytes are required for large scale production. These cells are mass generated and then cultivated on an EVAL membrane to form microtisssues, in which an EVAL membrane is biocompatible with no harm to human health. In addition, the method of the present invention does not require precision instruments, and no complicate techniques and manufacturing processes are involved, so that production cost can be effectively cost down. More importantly, the present invention has proved that the microtissues, when transplanted to individuals (nude mice), can develop into HF and hair sheath effectively so as to be applied to HF regeneration for the treatment of hair loss and alopecia.*

OK, there's a lot of information in this patent which will take some time to go through. The first thing that stood out to me was EVAL. What the hell is EVAL? So, here's what I dug out

EVAL which is short for Ethylene vinyl alcohol is a type of plasticy polymer used in the food industry and some surgical procedures. Here's a photo of it in case you're wondering:



BTW, EVAL is a trademark name, it's industrial name seems to be EVOH. We've all actually seen EVAL before. Apparently, in the milk carton, the middle layer is EVAL which keeps the milk in the carton and stops it from spilling out. There is then a layer of laminate on top of the EVAL on the outside.

In medicine, it is used in a liquid embolic system in interventional radiology such as Onyx. Basically it is used to embolise blood vessels.

The only paper I have managed to find on EVAL being used as a scaffold in tissue engineering is the following:

Our group has developed starch-based 3D scaffolds (Gomes et al. 2003; Pavlov et al. 2004) by melt-spinning blends of starch with ethylene vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVAL), poly(ϵ-caprolactone) (PCL) and polylactide (PLA) into fibre bundles. In this methodology, fibre mesh scaffolds are produced by applying a heat treatment to bond fibre bundles (Pavlov et al. 2004). For these scaffolds, cell survival was shown to be highly dependent on scaffold porosity, which is believed to be related to the more efficient diffusion of nutrients within the scaffold (Gomes et al. 2004a).

This paper was published back in 2004. EVAL alone is actually non-porous that is why it is so widely used in the food industry to package long shelf life product. It keeps air and moisture our of the pack. So, if porosity is so vital for cell survival, how have these guys overcome this issue? That's one for a discussion.

I'll post more info as I find them. BTW, Southern your investigative talents are amazing Keep it up brother.

TBC

[kobefan234]

Those 400 people should be 400 of us here in the forums. Lord knows we've made more of an effort to warrant a treatment than many others.

yeah the experimental trial groups should be us on the forums . spot on

[Desmond84]

Here's the abstract to their first study back in 2008:

Self-assembly of dermal papilla cells into inductive spheroidal microtissues on poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) membranes for hair follicle regeneration.

Self-aggregation is key to hair follicle (HF) induction ability of dermal papilla (DP) cells and neogenesis of HF can be achieved by transplanting DP microtissues. However, there is currently lack of a suitable system that allows efficient production of DP microtissues and analysis of DP self-aggregation in vitro. We demonstrate that, at a higher seeding cell density, poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) (EVAL) membranes facilitate DP self-assembly into many compact spheroidal microtissues that are able to induce new HFs. This self-assembling process is associated with an enhanced cell movement and a declined cell-substrate adhesivity on EVAL. A compromised cell growth is also revealed on EVAL. On the contrary, a more adherent surface allows faster cell expansion but maintains DP cells in a flat morphology. Dynamically, cell migration, intercellular collision and intercellular adhesion contribute to DP microtissue formation on EVAL. Our results suggest that, for large-scale production of DP microtissues for HF regeneration, an adhesive surface is needed for quick cell expansion and a biomaterial with a lower adhesivity is required for self-aggregation. In addition, this system can be a model for investigation of DP self-aggregation in vitro.

__________________________________________________ ______________

So they were on to the aggregation issue 5 years ahead of Jahoda/Christiano and came up with a solution that long ago. How the hell they stayed under our radar is beyond me!