Questions for Desmond at Hair Congress 2014

[nameless]

I hope you are kidding, right ? He butchered up ALL of his patients: Boldy is suffering from inflamations because they implanted grafts upside down and he has now ingrown hair for 5 cm long. Wesley got so sick that he had to get on medications to turn off his immune system, Tom's donor was killed, Boyfrench is not getting his money back .. all of his patients are suffering from disasters, Nigam's own tests all failed and you expect Nigam to report something useful ? The only thing this guy knows is how to butcher up patients.

What did Dr. Nigam do to Wesley that caused him to have to turn off his immune system? I just can't imagine how hair cell treatment or hair transplant treatment could cause the immune system to become a problem. Please elaborate.

[lilpauly]

Thank u arash my Persian brother , u uncovered the truth, I wish u were at the presentation with Desmond ! Btw I admire Desmond soo much ! Very very smart !!! Arash if u were at the presentation.

[Arashi]

What did Dr. Nigam do to Wesley that caused him to have to turn off his immune system? I just can't imagine how hair cell treatment or hair transplant treatment could cause the immune system to become a problem. Please elaborate.

Nigam injected Wesley with his 'stem cell treatment'. Wesley's nymph nodes started swelling and he got so sick that he entered into 'shock'. The hospital then put him on steroids to disable his immune system.

[Notcoolanymore]

Hi Hell

Thursday 10-11am is perfect. There are some key lectures in the afternoon that I dont want to miss

Damn, Desmond is a good dude also doing interviews.

I thought he would be like: "Damn, I agreed to go and take notes and report back to you guys, now I gotta do interviews too!", "I was just planning on attending the congress, hitting a few BBQ places, getting a couple of massages and going home".

[Arashi]

Damn, Desmond is a good dude also doing interviews.

Desmond is a hero. Period. He's not just putting a lot of effort and time into all of this, he's also still put up a fair amount of money himself (I think about $500).
So although we've hit the $2200 now, which is really great, cause we've covered most of the costs, donations are still more than welcome and appreciated ! Desmond shouldn't have to pay anything at all in my opinion, he's already putting in so much time and energy !

Desmond thanks again for doing all this for us as a community, brother !

[Arashi]

And also, just wanted to pay my respect to everybody who has donated and made this possible !! You guys rock ! And special thanks to Hellouser for all of his efforts !

[lilpauly]

Desmond is a hero. Period. He's not just putting a lot of effort and time into all of this, he's also still put up a fair amount of money himself (I think about $500).
So although we've hit the $2200 now, which is really great, cause we've covered most of the costs, donations are still more than welcome and appreciated ! Desmond shouldn't have to pay anything at all in my opinion, he's already putting in so much time and energy !

Desmond thanks again for doing all this for us as a community, brother !

I will donate on Thursday , your right he shouldn't have to pay 1 penny !!! I think we need one final push to get donations , 5 , 10 dollars Adds up

[hellouser]

Updated list of questions:

Beren Ataç/Dr. Gerd Lindner

1. If the bioreactor creates exact duplicates of follicles that function as normal follicles, is it necessary to have them go through clinical trials for implanting considering hair transplants achieve this and have been approved as a method for commercial use.
2. It's my understanding that the bioreactor is intended to create follicles for studying but if the bioreactor can make follicles why not just use the bioreactor to create new follicles and then implant those follicles into balding person's scalps?
3. How does the bioreactor work?
4. Has there been any success with the newly created follicles growing on human scalp creating thick terminal hair?
5. Are there plans to have these bioreactors available to doctors, ie; hair transplant doctors, to use and create new follicles?
6. What would the costs be for doctors to have such a bioreactor in clinics?
7. Have there been any trials done already? If so, how far have you come along? If not, when will they start?
8. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?
9. Does new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached to it?

Dr. Cotsarelis/Follica

1. Does the wounding method damage the scalp and dermis to the point of jeopardizing existing follicles that produce terminal hairs?
2. How far along is your wounding based therapy to treat hair loss?
3. In which Phase trial is Follica currently in?
4. When can we expect Phase III clinical trials to start for Follica?
5. How long is the wait period for the FDA to allow Follica to go commercial once the trials are finished?
6. Has the use of FGF-9 been used in the clinical trials with Follica?
7. Can the trials for Follica be fast tracked with the use of approved substances? If so, when could we see the treatment see a commercial release for the public to overcome baldness?
8. Can Follica's wounding method be repeated for increased density?
9. Does Follica's method of wounding jeopardize existing follicles?
10. Are the the current results cosmetically significant and consistent enough to represent a complete cure?
11. What is the state of PGD2 findings and a treatment for it in the interim until Follica's method is released?

ARP Sari

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Aaron Gardner

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Dr. Angela Christiano

1. Have there been any attempts to collaborate with the team of researchers in China that have been able to reproduce DP cells while retaining their properties along with the work of Dr. Colin Jahoda's method of reproducing Epithelial cells?
2. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?

General Questions For all Researchers

1. Does this treatment help people who suffer from DUTA to restore their hair?
2. Yale scientists say that fat cells under follicles signal follicles to grow hairs. Some doctors are injecting fat cells from the stomach into the scalp to try to get those fat cells to send signals to follicles to regrow hair. But the fat cells in the stomach are not actively giving off signals to the follicles to grow long thick hairs. Wouldn't it make more sense to take plugs from the patient's hair donor region where the hair is growing strong, culture the underlying fat cells, and re-inject the cultured fat cells into balding areas of the same person's scalp along with the appropriate hair cells, after culturing them as well? It is, after all, the follicles under the scalp hairs that are giving signals to the scalp follicles to grow long thick hairs.
3. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?
4. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?
5. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid?

[artika]

Updated list of questions:

Beren Ataç/Dr. Gerd Lindner

1. If the bioreactor creates exact duplicates of follicles that function as normal follicles, is it necessary to have them go through clinical trials for implanting considering hair transplants achieve this and have been approved as a method for commercial use.
2. It's my understanding that the bioreactor is intended to create follicles for studying but if the bioreactor can make follicles why not just use the bioreactor to create new follicles and then implant those follicles into balding person's scalps?
3. How does the bioreactor work?
4. Has there been any success with the newly created follicles growing on human scalp creating thick terminal hair?
5. Are there plans to have these bioreactors available to doctors, ie; hair transplant doctors, to use and create new follicles?
6. What would the costs be for doctors to have such a bioreactor in clinics?
7. Have there been any trials done already? If so, how far have you come along? If not, when will they start?
8. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?
9. Does new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached to it?

Dr. Cotsarelis/Follica

1. Does the wounding method damage the scalp and dermis to the point of jeopardizing existing follicles that produce terminal hairs?
2. How far along is your wounding based therapy to treat hair loss?
3. In which Phase trial is Follica currently in?
4. When can we expect Phase III clinical trials to start for Follica?
5. How long is the wait period for the FDA to allow Follica to go commercial once the trials are finished?
6. Has the use of FGF-9 been used in the clinical trials with Follica?
7. Can the trials for Follica be fast tracked with the use of approved substances? If so, when could we see the treatment see a commercial release for the public to overcome baldness?
8. Can Follica's wounding method be repeated for increased density?
9. Does Follica's method of wounding jeopardize existing follicles?
10. Are the the current results cosmetically significant and consistent enough to represent a complete cure?
11. What is the state of PGD2 findings and a treatment for it in the interim until Follica's method is released?

ARP Sari

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Aaron Gardner

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Dr. Angela Christiano

1. Have there been any attempts to collaborate with the team of researchers in China that have been able to reproduce DP cells while retaining their properties along with the work of Dr. Colin Jahoda's method of reproducing Epithelial cells?
2. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?

General Questions For all Researchers

1. Does this treatment help people who suffer from DUTA to restore their hair?
2. Yale scientists say that fat cells under follicles signal follicles to grow hairs. Some doctors are injecting fat cells from the stomach into the scalp to try to get those fat cells to send signals to follicles to regrow hair. But the fat cells in the stomach are not actively giving off signals to the follicles to grow long thick hairs. Wouldn't it make more sense to take plugs from the patient's hair donor region where the hair is growing strong, culture the underlying fat cells, and re-inject the cultured fat cells into balding areas of the same person's scalp along with the appropriate hair cells, after culturing them as well? It is, after all, the follicles under the scalp hairs that are giving signals to the scalp follicles to grow long thick hairs.
3. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?
4. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?
5. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid?

Srry I made a mistake , not DUTA but DUPA (Diffuse UnPatterned Alopecia)

[nameless]

Updated list of questions:

Beren Ataç/Dr. Gerd Lindner

1. If the bioreactor creates exact duplicates of follicles that function as normal follicles, is it necessary to have them go through clinical trials for implanting considering hair transplants achieve this and have been approved as a method for commercial use.
2. It's my understanding that the bioreactor is intended to create follicles for studying but if the bioreactor can make follicles why not just use the bioreactor to create new follicles and then implant those follicles into balding person's scalps?
3. How does the bioreactor work?
4. Has there been any success with the newly created follicles growing on human scalp creating thick terminal hair?
5. Are there plans to have these bioreactors available to doctors, ie; hair transplant doctors, to use and create new follicles?
6. What would the costs be for doctors to have such a bioreactor in clinics?
7. Have there been any trials done already? If so, how far have you come along? If not, when will they start?
8. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?
9. Does new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached to it?

Dr. Cotsarelis/Follica

1. Does the wounding method damage the scalp and dermis to the point of jeopardizing existing follicles that produce terminal hairs?
2. How far along is your wounding based therapy to treat hair loss?
3. In which Phase trial is Follica currently in?
4. When can we expect Phase III clinical trials to start for Follica?
5. How long is the wait period for the FDA to allow Follica to go commercial once the trials are finished?
6. Has the use of FGF-9 been used in the clinical trials with Follica?
7. Can the trials for Follica be fast tracked with the use of approved substances? If so, when could we see the treatment see a commercial release for the public to overcome baldness?
8. Can Follica's wounding method be repeated for increased density?
9. Does Follica's method of wounding jeopardize existing follicles?
10. Are the the current results cosmetically significant and consistent enough to represent a complete cure?
11. What is the state of PGD2 findings and a treatment for it in the interim until Follica's method is released?

ARP Sari

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Aaron Gardner

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Dr. Angela Christiano

1. Have there been any attempts to collaborate with the team of researchers in China that have been able to reproduce DP cells while retaining their properties along with the work of Dr. Colin Jahoda's method of reproducing Epithelial cells?
2. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?

General Questions For all Researchers

1. Does this treatment help people who suffer from DUTA to restore their hair?
2. Yale scientists say that fat cells under follicles signal follicles to grow hairs. Some doctors are injecting fat cells from the stomach into the scalp to try to get those fat cells to send signals to follicles to regrow hair. But the fat cells in the stomach are not actively giving off signals to the follicles to grow long thick hairs. Wouldn't it make more sense to take plugs from the patient's hair donor region where the hair is growing strong, culture the underlying fat cells, and re-inject the cultured fat cells into balding areas of the same person's scalp along with the appropriate hair cells, after culturing them as well? It is, after all, the follicles under the scalp hairs that are giving signals to the scalp follicles to grow long thick hairs.
3. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?
4. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?
5. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid?

One last question for Linder/Atac:

Rather than doctors buying the bioreactor machine would doctors be allowed to ship patient cells to the inventor/lab and the lab would use their bioreactor to turn the cells into follicles and then ship the follicles back to the doctors (who sent them to the inventor/lab) so that the doctor could implant the follicles into patients?

[nameless]

One more question for linder/atac:

If the inventor/lab will allow doctors to send their patient's cells into the inventor/lab, and if the inventor/lab will use their bioreactor to form the cells into follicles so they can ship them back to the shipping doctor so the shipping doctor can implant those newly formed follicles into the scalps of their patients, will the inventor/lab start doing this NOW if the doctors who make the requests do their work in a country that allows this type of cellular - folliclular implantation at this time?

There are countries that would allow this type of treatment right now. The thing is that the doctors there can't afford to buy the machine so if the inventor/lab will receive the cells and process them into follicles at the inventor/lab location and send them back to the shipping doctor if such procedure is legal where the shipping doctor is working then the people in that location could start enjoying the benefit of this treatment NOW.

[sdsurfin]

One last question for Linder/Atac:

Rather than doctors buying the bioreactor machine would doctors be allowed to ship patient cells to the inventor/lab and the lab would use their bioreactor to turn the cells into follicles and then ship the follicles back to the doctors (who sent them to the inventor/lab) so that the doctor could implant the follicles into patients?

Why such a big focus on the germans? The ones doing the most interesting ad advanced research are the japanese and also Dr. Clavel. The cure will come when someone figures out how to create many new whole follicles, which lauster's team has not done. The bioreactor is simply the beginning of a way to create an environment for culture. Acoording to Aaron Gardner and Dr. Xu at Upenn, We still need to be able to make more DP cells (not just culture them with inductivity), and no one is able to do that yet. The way there seems pretty planned out, and is probably a long road, so my question to all these guys would be : how long do you think it will be before whole follicles are cultured and implanted, and what treatments and solutions do you expect, and when? Most of them will probably be dodgy, but if you ask enough of them you might get a hopeful, or if we're not lucky, not so hopeful consensus. either way it would be a benefit to know if to bother dealing with the issue and spend money on it, or just accept it.

I would also ask Lauster's team and Cotsarellis' team why their predictions seemed so hopeful 5 years ago and what has held things up. I don't think it's an unfair question, and I'm sure they have good reasons (I don't hate on researchers, nor do i think they are lazy), but would be cool to know.

[Desmond84]

Updated list of questions:

Beren Ataç/Dr. Gerd Lindner

1. If the bioreactor creates exact duplicates of follicles that function as normal follicles, is it necessary to have them go through clinical trials for implanting considering hair transplants achieve this and have been approved as a method for commercial use.
2. It's my understanding that the bioreactor is intended to create follicles for studying but if the bioreactor can make follicles why not just use the bioreactor to create new follicles and then implant those follicles into balding person's scalps?
3. How does the bioreactor work?
4. Has there been any success with the newly created follicles growing on human scalp creating thick terminal hair?
5. Are there plans to have these bioreactors available to doctors, ie; hair transplant doctors, to use and create new follicles?
6. What would the costs be for doctors to have such a bioreactor in clinics?
7. Have there been any trials done already? If so, how far have you come along? If not, when will they start?
8. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?
9. Does new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached to it?

Dr. Cotsarelis/Follica

1. Does the wounding method damage the scalp and dermis to the point of jeopardizing existing follicles that produce terminal hairs?
2. How far along is your wounding based therapy to treat hair loss?
3. In which Phase trial is Follica currently in?
4. When can we expect Phase III clinical trials to start for Follica?
5. How long is the wait period for the FDA to allow Follica to go commercial once the trials are finished?
6. Has the use of FGF-9 been used in the clinical trials with Follica?
7. Can the trials for Follica be fast tracked with the use of approved substances? If so, when could we see the treatment see a commercial release for the public to overcome baldness?
8. Can Follica's wounding method be repeated for increased density?
9. Does Follica's method of wounding jeopardize existing follicles?
10. Are the the current results cosmetically significant and consistent enough to represent a complete cure?
11. What is the state of PGD2 findings and a treatment for it in the interim until Follica's method is released?

ARP Sari

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Aaron Gardner

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?

Dr. Angela Christiano

1. Have there been any attempts to collaborate with the team of researchers in China that have been able to reproduce DP cells while retaining their properties along with the work of Dr. Colin Jahoda's method of reproducing Epithelial cells?
2. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?

General Questions For all Researchers

1. Does this treatment help people who suffer from DUTA to restore their hair?
2. Yale scientists say that fat cells under follicles signal follicles to grow hairs. Some doctors are injecting fat cells from the stomach into the scalp to try to get those fat cells to send signals to follicles to regrow hair. But the fat cells in the stomach are not actively giving off signals to the follicles to grow long thick hairs. Wouldn't it make more sense to take plugs from the patient's hair donor region where the hair is growing strong, culture the underlying fat cells, and re-inject the cultured fat cells into balding areas of the same person's scalp along with the appropriate hair cells, after culturing them as well? It is, after all, the follicles under the scalp hairs that are giving signals to the scalp follicles to grow long thick hairs.
3. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?
4. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?
5. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid?

Wow this is great Hell. Thank you so much

I'll do my best

[hairy]

Considering that we got some female funding, please cover at least 1-2 of the presentations on female balding.

[Desmond84]

Considering that we got some female funding, please cover at least 1-2 of the presentations on female balding.

That is definitely on the agenda. There's one coming up this afternoon ;-)