Human lung created in the lab

[burtandernie]

I agree skepticism is a part of science and good thing. That being said cant follow the argument that scientific proof like this which happened in the last year is not any sign of being closer to a cure then we were in 2007 as you said above. This seems a very important and concrete step in the right direction. That being said I think we are 10+ years away at the very least. My opinion is you really cant put a reliable timeline on this kind of stuff.

published october 2013 by numerous other sources

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/10/21/cure-for-baldness-researchers-create-new-technique-for-growing-new-human-hair/

[Molten]

TBH, I strongly believe that everyone's entitled to their opinions and arguing against them will only put them in a defensive position that makes it even harder to have a real conversation. SO, I do respect your standpoint and I must say there is a possibility we may never have a cure in our lifetime. For example, we may find that there is a risk of cancer when these mini-organs are transplanted (although unlikely but there is a possibility). Such an event would set cell therapy back 10-20 years!

But I also believe that no successful entrepreneur or research scientist ever faced a challenge with a pessimistic attitude. You must remain positive and believe in a given goal in order to attain it. Hope plays a very powerful role and is the driving force behind the 'Cutting Edge/Future Treatments' section of this forum.

This section of forum has inspired many of our younger members to take on studies in Medicine, Developmental Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and even stem cell research. If our posts and discussions can at least put some more feet on the ground in the research field, we will be having a much better pool of therapies in the pipeline and that my friend is the best thing we could have achieved in these forums.

I think hope is very important, and I apologize to those members that feel I'm crushing their hopes. I'm just so disillusioned by the failed promises and tabloid headlines over the years of an mpb cure being just around the corner, when it really isn't. I remember reading an article back in 2007 when I was in high school and that was alleging how some breakthrough is going to cure baldness. I thought baldness would be cured by now and in the very small chance that I were to lose my hair, I wouldn't have to worry about it.

From what I seen, I don't think we're really any closer to a true cure today than we were back in 2007. I hope I am proven wrong and I am hoping the skepticism displayed by myself and others only serves to motivate those who think it can be done and will be the first to accomplish it. Being optimistic is good, but it must be tempered with doses of scientific reality every now and again. Otherwise, we will descend to the level of credibility as exhibited by the DailyFail and other tabloid trash. Skepticism is the most important quality all aspiring scientists need to have.

[Molten]

That's totally NOT saying what you think it says. They say that DP cells can't be cultured. Cause all experiments thus far had caused the DP cells to lose their follicle inducing capability (unlike mouse cells). Jahoda was the first EVER last year to culture DP cells retaining their hair follicle inducing capability. That's what the abstract says.

No, that's exactly consistent with what I was saying earlier. They have not at all addressed any of the cell structure/stability issues that engraftment would cause, which is exactly what I was trying to demonstrate.

I don't think you seem to understand what I'm saying. I'm not saying any of these laboratory techniques they hope to accomplish won't pan out, rather, what I'm saying is implementing these techniques and actually transplanting these cells into a scalp will always yield poor results unless there is some unforeseen major breakthrough that changes all of this.

[Arashi]

Yeah it's doable, but the process is complicated and expensive. Safety, time, cost and expense all enter in.

Now these are actually valid concerns. Every researcher agreed that safety would need to be examined in clinical trials and could possibly be an issue. Also everything would have to be optimized so far that it becomes available for reasonable costs.

[35YrsAfter]

Repeating Pattern

There is a repeating theme... Many goals, achievements, breakthroughs, etc. once thought impossible have been reached. For example, my grandmother was born in 1890 and lived to a very old age. I remember as a kid, asking her what people might think when she was young of the idea that we would one day put a man on the moon. She said anyone who believed that would be considered crazy (in all caps).

Landing on the moon, human hair on nude mice... Yeah it's doable, but the process is complicated and expensive. Safety, time, cost and expense all enter in. Whittle those four way down, add some more research and I think the problem is pretty much solved. There certainly is a demand for hair. Most men with hair loss would rather have a full head of hair than take their family on a vacation to the moon. It's cheaper to just travel to parts of Nevada for a rocks-only landscape.

Predictions are an interesting study. The best including Ray Kurzweil simply cannot predict the future.

Predictions made years ago for 2014

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office
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The contents of my posts are my opinions and not medical advice
Please feel free to call or email me with any questions. Ask for Chuck

[Arashi]

Anyway Molten, you were wrong about everything you claimed here. Again, we're almost there. Jahoda managed to culture DP cells, retaining the hair inducing ability on human skin. The method needs improvement cause a lot of gene expressions was lost in his process. In his paper he already mentions several possible reasons and suggests way to improve his method. If this works, then hairloss is a thing of the history. Same goes for inducing IPS to DP.

Really, getting those damn DP cells is the last piece of the puzzle.

[Desmond84]

TBH, I strongly believe that everyone's entitled to their opinions and arguing against them will only put them in a defensive position that makes it even harder to have a real conversation. SO, I do respect your standpoint and I must say there is a possibility we may never have a cure in our lifetime. For example, we may find that there is a risk of cancer when these mini-organs are transplanted (although unlikely but there is a possibility). Such an event would set cell therapy back 10-20 years!

But I also believe that no successful entrepreneur or research scientist ever faced a challenge with a pessimistic attitude. You must remain positive and believe in a given goal in order to attain it. Hope plays a very powerful role and is the driving force behind the 'Cutting Edge/Future Treatments' section of this forum.

This section of forum has inspired many of our younger members to take on studies in Medicine, Developmental Biology, Medicinal Chemistry and even stem cell research. If our posts and discussions can at least put some more feet on the ground in the research field, we will be having a much better pool of therapies in the pipeline and that my friend is the best thing we could have achieved in these forums.

[Arashi]

Firstly, the results are still pretty controversial and still preliminary. From the abstract of the paper that contains their published results, they themselves admit they haven't at all demonstrated whether these cells can at all be transplanted onto a scalp,

LOL you must be reading some other abstract that you've posted. This is getting really weird. They dont mention that anywhere man. What exactly are you reading ? I assume you mean misunderstand things and refer to this:

This approach, however, has not been successful using cultured human dermal papilla cells in human skin because the cells lose their ability to induce hair growth after expansion in vitro.

That's totally NOT saying what you think it says. They say that DP cells can't be cultured. Cause all experiments thus far had caused the DP cells to lose their follicle inducing capability (unlike mouse cells). Jahoda was the first EVER last year to culture DP cells retaining their hair follicle inducing capability. That's what the abstract says.

[Molten]

Name them please ? What makes human foreskin not a good & accurate model in your opinion ?

Firstly, the results are still pretty controversial and still preliminary. From the abstract of the paper that contains their published results, they themselves admit they haven't at all demonstrated whether these cells can at all be transplanted onto a scalp, which is completely consistent with what I was stating earlier. They haven't solved any of the fundamental cell issues brought up earlier, but rather refining the current experimental techniques.


Care to elaborate on what you mean by "a good and accurate model"? As I mentioned above, any method that involves the engraftment of the stem cells will always yield inferior hair follicles because it trades cell structure and stability for apparent functionality. The artificial hair follicles will never even come close to rivaling the quality of the native hair follicles.

[Arashi]

edit

[Arashi]

Will they be able to translate this success to actually growing hair on a test subject's head? I don't think so, and there's many good scientific reasons for this.

Name them please ? What makes human foreskin not a good & accurate model in your opinion ?

[Arashi]

There's nothing at all revolutionary about engrafting hair on mice, we've known how to do it in principle for decades.

Please, seriously, if you don't know what you're talking about, then just stop posting, because this is getting really tiring. Tsuji lab did not just 'engraft hair on mice'. They biogenerated a human hair follicle and implanted that on a mouse, two years ago. This was the first time in history that someone actually succeeded at biogenerating and growing a fully working human hair follicle, out of some cells.


Excerpt from their paper:

Furthermore, the human bioengineered hair follicle germ, which was composed of the dissociated bulge region-derived epithelial cells and scalp hair follicle-derived intact DPs of an androgenetic alopecia patient, grew a pigmented hair shaft in the transplantation area within 21 days after intracutaneous transplantation into the back skin of nude mice (Fig. 2b). This bioengineered hair follicle formed the correct structures, that is, an infundibulum and sebaceous gland in the proximal region as well as a hair matrix, hair shaft, inner root sheath, ORS, DS, and a DP containing ~500 cells (Fig. 2b). By analysing the nuclear morphology with Hoechst staining40, we confirmed that the cells in the bioengineered hair follicle were of human origin.

See: http://www.tsuji-lab.com/en/pdf/Toyo...ncomms1784.pdf

[Molten]

Last year, Jahoda repeated that experiment, but not with existing cells, but this time even with cultured cells (!!!), again human hair but this time even on human skin, albeit gene expression was not high enough yet, so contrary to Tsuji's experiment, the hair wasn't cosmetically correct just yet.

If you're impressed by these results, then you're going to be depressed when they end up failing (as usual). There's nothing at all revolutionary about engrafting hair on mice, we've known how to do it in principle for decades.

It's not the question if bio generated HF's will produce human hair or if the HF's will grow on human skin. We're already past that man. The only problem left is creating DP cells. If Jahoda improves his method, or that Tawanese trial is a success, or Tsuji finds a way to induce IPS cells into DP cells, or Li's group reaches it first then hairloss problems are a thing of the history.

Once again, growing hair follicles in the laboratory is MUCH, MUCH EASIER to do than growing it on a test subject's head with truly meaningful results. Will they be successful in bettering their experimental techniques? Definitely. Will they be able to translate this success to actually growing hair on a test subject's head? I don't think so, and there's many good scientific reasons for this. Unless, of course, they've completely gotten around all the main hurdles I brought up but for some reason aren't telling us about it. I doubt it.

[CAlex]

I dont think the answer is us starting our own lab. The truth is "we" just arent at the point of being able to produce a cure yet. We are getting closer.

I dont think you and Desmond are going to buy some equipment and crack this one. no offense.
as to my earlier comment about you. I just meant you seem to have gotten very depressed and angry within the last few months and it shows in your posts.

You should get a hobby or spend your time going to school, working out, training for a new job or whatever you want. Maybe you have already done all the above. Its just the old adage of " a watched pot never boils" You keep saying we need. we need food. you want a cure. Two very different things. If you need a cure now, you better start working on it my friend.

I definitely lost a few years being consumed by everything that goes along with going through this but Ive realized its not worth it. I you want to take this as an attack feel free. Its just my advice.

[inspects]

But our best days are fleeting so we need a treatment NOW. As soon as the final step is done we gotta have something available ASAP rather having gatekeepers holding it from us.

I do believe you're 100% correct.