Final Days: Chinese Scientists Have Solved the DP Culturing Problem! (2014)

[DesperateOne]

I agree 7-9 years is a disaster. But at least after all these years we see the light on a very far tunnel but it is there nonetheless. I am curious if once the entire process is out as a protocol if some rogue doctors in The US will try this on celebs and those willing to pay.

[Seuxin]

Hello,

What is Jahoda's findings ?

Thanks a lot,

Seuxin

[Kiwi]

I'm planning on a scarless Pilofocus procedure when its out (late this year? early next year?) and continue with topical DHT inhibitors as a 'bridge' until stem cell therapy is available. It's taken me 10 years to go down to NW3 so a single HT of 2,500 grafts would take me back a loooooong way.

Regardless, a strong push for a quick release of a stem cell therapy is needed for everyone, not just lower norwoods like myself... but especially for guys that have had their lives destroyed by this shite.

Hey Hell. What is your Topical routine at the moment? Still the same?

Also have you seem Dallas Buyers Club. It reminded me of our cause and how retarded the FDA is.

[Hicks]

Well the potential is definitely there for any competent hair transplant doctor, hell, even Dr. Cole said he'd go to that 'drug resistant tuberculosis infested place' aka India (his words!) to meet with Mr. Nigam.

Doesn't Cole have a South Korea branch? Not sure how South Korea laws would play into this.

[ChemicalBrother]

@hellouser @arashi @desmond
I was refused by Bisanga for having a shitty (pardon my french) donor area.
Lots of weak hairs back there, miniaturisation , the whole 9 yards.
Would this new technique, if it came to market, be a way out for guys like me.

@hellouser : would I benefit from Pilofocus method (once regen of donor at a nice high percentage has been proven?)

[Vox]

HT's are always an option ...

A HT needs hair to be done, so it is an option only if your baldness does not go beyond NW4/NW5 at most. For the rest of us, NW6+, a HT is a joke.

[Desmond84]

Strong evidence we are on the right track

Here's a optimistic paper published a few weeks ago in the Journal of Experimental Dermatology that was reassuring to say the least It seems that even the researchers believe that we are on the event horizon and the final steps are within our grasps. A great time to be following all of these breakthroughs.

At the dawn of hair research – testing the limits of hair follicle regeneration.

Maksim V. Plikus, PhD

Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, Sue and Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.

In the late 1960’s, tissue recombination studies by Roy Oliver on the model of rat vibrissae provided invaluable information about the morphogenetic properties of hair follicles. Now more than ever, the field is hopeful that a clinically reproducible procedure for cell-based hair regeneration is achievable. Highly inductive mesenchymal cells are thought to be the key ingredient necessary to achieve robust hair regeneration, and efforts are underway to develop protocols to improve the naturally low inductive properties of human dermal papilla cells. In this respect, the original studies by Oliver provide essential rodent research benchmarks, which current-day human studies should aim to reach.

The hair follicle has emerged as one of the leading experimental models for studying mechanisms of tissue regeneration in adult mammals. The hair growth cycle is a prominent physiological regenerative process, wherein each hair follicle cyclically transitions through complex phases of remodeling, each time producing a new hair shaft. In addition to physiological regeneration, hair follicles are able to regenerate after injury, such as following transection and even when dissociated into a single cell suspension. Indeed, dissociated epithelial and mesenchymal cells can effectively reassemble into new, fully functional hair follicles when recombined in vivo (1).

The latter cell-based reconstitution experiments generated considerable excitement that hair follicles can be multiplied from limited donor material by expanding epithelial and mesenchymal cells in vitro and then implanting them into the donor site, such as into scars or scalp skin of patients with androgenetic alopecia. Follow-up studies using human instead of mouse cells painted a more complex picture, wherein this high hair-inducing ability displayed by mouse dermal papilla cells is not readily replicated by human cells under similar experimental settings (2, 3).

There is an ongoing effort to try to overcome the low inductive potential of human dermal papilla cells and adapt cell-based hair reconstitution techniques into clinical settings. Only recently, conclusive evidence for the ability of human cells to reassemble into new functional hair follicles was provided (4-6). To achieve human hair reconstitution, Thangapazham et al. (5) and Higgins et al. (7) improved hair inducing properties of adult dermal papilla cells in vitro by placing them into dermal-epidermal composites or growing them in three-dimensional spheroid cultures, respectively.

As the field continues to edge closer toward developing clinically successful strategies for cell-based hair restoration, there is a growing need to better understand the signaling basis behind the inductive properties of hair follicle mesenchyme. However, it is only within the last couple of years that genetic tools have been made available to hair researchers to study the mesenchymal aspect of complex signaling interactions underlying hair follicle development and regeneration (8-10).

............He then goes on to talk about some groundbreaking work done in 1960s which showed the importance of Dermal papilla cells in hair regeneration and then follows on to say:

In the future, it will be particularly interesting to establish if the dermal sheath primarily acts as the niche for mesenchymal stem cells of the dermal papilla. In addition, the dermal sheath exerts important other functions, such as regulating the behavior of epithelial cells in the outer root sheath, including the downward bound migration of epithelial stem cell progeny during anagen, the active hair growth phase (19). Also, comparative gene expression profiling between hair-inducing lower and non-inducing upper dermal sheath cells should yield novel mesenchymal determinants of inductivity with practical application for boosting efficacy of human hair reconstitution assays.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/exd.12334/pdf

__________________________________________________ _____________________________________

Using Dermal sheath cells as a niche to grow DP cells is a very new idea at least to me anyway. Very interesting stuff. He basically thinks we should dermal sheath act as a 'bed' for DP cells to lay on in order to maintain their hair induction properties. At least in vivo (in our scalp) that is how they are situated which makes sense at least in theory.

Big thumbs up

[hellouser]

A HT needs hair to be done, so it is an option only if your baldness does not go beyond NW4/NW5 at most. For the rest of us, NW6+, a HT is a joke.

Hair transplants in their current form are a joke too; SCARRING. Until Pilofocus is released, HT isn't an option for me.

[fred970]

Yeah, SCARRING!

So unsightly:



Seriously, who would notice that outside the hair loss world? And it's only 7 days after the FUE.

How long will I have to wait before I'll be able to do pilofocus for 2000 grafts at the price of 5000€? Something like forever right?

[hellouser]

Yeah, SCARRING!

So unsightly:



Seriously, who would notice that outside the hair loss world? And it's only 7 days after the FUE.

How long will I have to wait before I'll be able to do pilofocus for 2000 grafts at the price of 5000€? Something like forever right?

Yep, unsightly. Thanks for the image, just shows how bad it is and how much worse it would be shaven down more so.

And yeah, Pilofocus won't be cheap.

[Kalio]

Why wouldn't Pilofocus be cheap? It's less labor intensive and I recall Dr.Wesley himself claiming it would be on par with current FUE prices.

[fred970]

I'm sorry but, even with pilofocus, if there is no scarring, it will look the same.

There will still be no hair where it was extracted. It's common sense.

[hellouser]

I'm sorry but, even with pilofocus, if there is no scarring, it will look the same.

There will still be no hair where it was extracted. It's common sense.

True, but at least it won't have the moth eaten look. I'm interested in what Pilofocus can do with the hairline at the nape; remove a 1-2cm strip from the bottom of the nape, perhaps even ear to ear harvesting ALL the grafts without any scarring, essentially giving the back of your head a 'receded hairline'. You'd then still have plenty of donor hair left above that area.

[HairBane]

True, but at least it won't have the moth eaten look. I'm interested in what Pilofocus can do with the hairline at the nape; remove a 1-2cm strip from the bottom of the nape, perhaps even ear to ear harvesting ALL the grafts without any scarring, essentially giving the back of your head a 'receded hairline'. You'd then still have plenty of donor hair left above that area.

I have so much neck fluff they could use.

[Sogeking]

This is still too far off, no one has even started with clinical trials it is all still lab work. I this works on human skin which I really hope it does, and I really hope will see it in May, then they have to start with clinical trials and those last at least a decade.
Don't believe me? Check when Histogen, Aderans and Replicel started their clinical trials and where they are now.

Sure everyone hopes that other Asian countries have less strict regulations, and I am hoping for that as well but that does not mean they will hold trials there, they might concentrate on USA or Europe first.
I am hoping more for CB to actually work and I was really glad to hear about the Taiwanese starting the trials. However we need more info about those Taiwan trials, we are totally in the dark on that.