WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[agardner]

I'm not sure if sophisticated is the word, especially not in relation to myself But I'm happy to come and discuss my work (and my understanding of others work) anywhere, it's part of why I enjoy doing science .

To answer your questions it might be best first to lay out our current aims/understanding:

1) Rat whisker dermal papilla (DP) can be isolated, cultured and re-implanted into the skin to induce new follicles.

2) Fresh, whole human DP can be re-implanted to induce a follicle.

3) 2D cultured human DP lose this ability to induce follicle.

4) Dr Higgins in her paper demonstrated this nicely by by performing a micro-array, (a technique which compares, in bulk, gene expression between two or more samples). She showed that there was significant variation in several thousand genes between in vivo DP and 2D cultured DP (Fig 2A of her paper). http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/10/16/1309970110

5) She also demonstrated that 3D culture of human DP restored ~40% of the in vivo DP genetic character that was lost in 2D culture (Fig. 4C)

6) These 3D spheres were able to induce the formation of follicle structures from 5 of 7 donors with an efficiency ranging from 10-60% (i.e 10 spheres - 1 follicle structure = 10% efficiency).

So we want to take this further and there are several areas that we want to look at:
7) Improve efficiency, use more accessible cells, use only adult human tissues and develop a "quick" non-animal model assay.

8) Efficiency - Further restore in vivo DP character to 3D DP cultures, we are attempting to do this by coating the DP spheres with epithelial cells, to mimic the interactions that are occurring in vivo (Dr Higgins explained this really well in her talk). These dermal-epidermal interactions are key in follicle development and subsequent hair cycling. See also: http://www.hairtx.com/files/2014/03/peg.gif this is the interaction that we're attempting to mimic in our cultures.

9) Accessible cells - Attempt to restore DP character to non DP cultures. We are looking at the dermal sheath (DS) as we think they are more similar in character to the DP than dermal fibroblasts (DF). But this is a stepping stone to using DF as the Rendl group are attempting. See "P202 (SY10) REPROGRAMMING REGULAR SKIN FIBROBLASTS INTO HAIR INDUCING DERMAL PAPILLA CELLS Carlos CLAVEL" from WCHR2014. We are doing this by adding genes that Dr Higgins identified in her paper, into DS and seeing if we can make them DP like.

10) Adult tissues - The majority of studies which demonstrate inductivity either use mouse or neonatal human epithelial cells/tissue. This obviously wont apply in patient so we need to demonstrate inductivity in a less "competent" tissue.

11) Quick assay - we need to screen for a lot of things, we need a quick, easy and cheap assay to achieve this. None of the current assays tick these boxes.

So what do I show?:
12) Efficiency - Epithelial coating restores markers of inductivity that are not seen in dermal only spheres, the populations are interacting, this is great and we hope to repeat Dr Higgins microarray experiment and see if we further restore character. When this works, it works really well. BUT the efficiency of coating is poor, a lot of the time the epithelial cells don't stick to the dermal model, so no improvement in inductivity, we're not sure why this is but we are trying other methods of coating, isolation epithelial cells and epithelial cell populations.

13) Accessible cells - A better option than above, but currently none of the factors we have screened have restored DP character. We have lots more factors and will move onto multiple factor screens as well.

14) Adult tissues - All our work is progressing using adult tissues, but we have yet to try our new cultures in a mouse model, we will do so shortly when we have our ideal double-sphere and any promising DS-DP .

15) Quick model - This has worked out really nicely, we have a new model we can use in the lab to see if our spheres induce the epithelium to grow down into the dermis of our gels, which is reminiscent of initial follicle formation.

Sorry for the wall of text, but I think it shows our thinking nicely. Other groups have differing ideas and it was great to see them at the WCHR and to see what it is that the other groups are up to. We can then apply the nice bits of their thinking to our models (and hopefully they might use some of our ideas ).

To answer the other key question of "when". To be honest I don't know, every year we make progress as do all the other groups. I don't really believe in this "5 years" time thing, as I honestly think one group will crack it, and it will appear very rapidly after that. Look out for papers using adult only human tissues, non follicle derived dermal cells and with high reproducibility those are the ones that are going to have the widest applications.

[Arashi]

Actually, I'm a bit confused Aaron From your sheets i get it that you guys restored HF inductivity by dermal/epidermal interactions so you're trying to make the DP cells think they're still in the skin, right ? However that didnt work as well as you had hoped since the outcome quality was very variable, right ? Can you maybe elaborate a bit on this ?

[Arashi]

Hello, I'm Aaron Gardner one of the researchers who was presenting at the WCHR 2014. I found this thread as I was googling one of the other authors to try and find their email address, kind of strange to see me mentioned on the internet .

Linked are the two posters/talks that I presented at the conference for your interest, I guess the inductivity one is of most interest:

http://adobe.ly/1sO7MIV

I would be happy to try and answer any questions you have on my work or on any of the other work I saw presented.

Hi Aaron !! Wow what an honor to have a member of the most sophisticated hair regeneration research team on earth on this board !!

We're waiting for Desmond to bring the presentations online, I think he said he will get to that next sunday. So we havent seen your presentation yet. However I think the biggest question we currently have is: what exactly is still standing between us and a cure ? I mean when Jahoda presented his breakthrough last year, it seemed that they were under the impression that the hairs you guys created weren't cosmetically viable since a good deal of gene expression was lost during the DP cell expansion. Now according to Desmond that problem has been solved and those DP cells can now be cultured while retaining all gene expression. So what is the current problem that you guys are facing ?

Thanks again for joining this forum !!!

[Thinning87]

Cotsarelis is not trolling, he was asked a question and answered it. He would expect that people at the conference would have a good idea on the complexity and costs of taking a treatment from the lab to the market. I think you will find that the 2 million is for a product that should work. 2 million would not include the clinical trials or marketing or refinement that would be required. The great costs are not the initial 2 million talked about. It is the ongoing costs of clinical trials and the fact the money will be tied up for years until it hopefully passes the FDA. The people on this site are minority, the majority will not leave their country for treatment. This means for a return on investment it must pass FDA and the equivalent in many different countries. This takes years and costs vast amounts of money. Then once pasted it requires marketing etc.

if The treatment has no over possible alternative uses it means hair loss is the only way to recover costs. It is not like some drugs that could possible be used to teat alternatives conditions. I can see why it would be hard to attract investors. The potential market is also unknown, hair loss is not a life and death condition. People who are balding may choose not to seek treatment which limits the potential market. Men are also far from the large part of the cosmetic market. What are the treatment costs going to be is a very important question.

What a bunch of bull shit. There are very few bald people on this planet who are happier with no hair. There is so much money going into hair transplants and there would be much more for a definitive cure that does not have a transplant's drawbacks. This is an easy measure to use as benchmark to have an idea of the size of the market. Furthermore, we all know only 8% of bald people do use propecia and minox, and that is despite the fact that they work like shit!

Yes there are risks involved with clinical trials. No that is not nearly enough to stop an investment in a potential cure given the payoff.

[jay woo]

Cotsarelis is not trolling, he was asked a question and answered it. He would expect that people at the conference would have a good idea on the complexity and costs of taking a treatment from the lab to the market. I think you will find that the 2 million is for a product that should work. 2 million would not include the clinical trials or marketing or refinement that would be required. The great costs are not the initial 2 million talked about. It is the ongoing costs of clinical trials and the fact the money will be tied up for years until it hopefully passes the FDA. The people on this site are minority, the majority will not leave their country for treatment. This means for a return on investment it must pass FDA and the equivalent in many different countries. This takes years and costs vast amounts of money. Then once pasted it requires marketing etc.

if The treatment has no over possible alternative uses it means hair loss is the only way to recover costs. It is not like some drugs that could possible be used to teat alternatives conditions. I can see why it would be hard to attract investors. The potential market is also unknown, hair loss is not a life and death condition. People who are balding may choose not to seek treatment which limits the potential market. Men are also far from the large part of the cosmetic market. What are the treatment costs going to be is a very important question.

[GuyFromUK]

Hello, I'm Aaron Gardner one of the researchers who was presenting at the WCHR 2014. I found this thread as I was googling one of the other authors to try and find their email address, kind of strange to see me mentioned on the internet .

Linked are the two posters/talks that I presented at the conference for your interest, I guess the inductivity one is of most interest:

http://adobe.ly/1sO7MIV

I would be happy to try and answer any questions you have on my work or on any of the other work I saw presented.

Hi Aaron and welcome to the Forum.

I am sure some of the more scientifically minded forum members will be able to ask you some science based questions on the work you are doing. I am sure I speak for millions of us though when I ask you 1 question: "When do you think the cure for baldness will be here?"

[TravisB]

Approval shouldn't take 3 times as long as the trial itself, thats ridiculous.... Aderans projected a 1 year turnaround for their phase 3 trial.

I just don't get it, it boggles the ****ing mind;

Follica has ONE phase trial left before commercialization which would effectively allow itself to completely DOMINATE the market until a cure comes along which isnt happening for the next 8 years. This would gives them 8 years of raking in tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and the only thing holding them back is a measly 2 million dollars?

Something is wrong with that. One of the following must be true;
- Dr. Cotsarelis trolled the hell out of Desmond and lied (for corporate reasons)
- Follica is incredibly incompetent with securing funds
- like some of you had said their procedure doesnt work as well as we'd think and no one is willing to invest....

But if no one is willing to invest, why the hell did they claim last year they're able to create NEW follicles from wounding? Wouldn't multiple passes of Follica's treatment ultimately get you cured? That would be enough to have investers look at their progress and say 'oh wow, you've effectively created a treatment that is far superior to anything out on the market today which garners billions of dollars for treatments that DONT work'. Can any of you imagine what the revenue would be for baldness if we had treatments that DID work? The figures would skyrocket... so why the hell would anyone pass up on the opportunity to put only 2 million dollars to have the next 8+ years be completely loaded with profits and basically a monopoly on the market? Even if a cure DID come out, wounding would still be a viable option to those that couldn't afford or didnt need a full out treatment of individual follicles being lab grown and implanted.

Dr. Cotsarelis is definitely NOT telling us the whole story, that is guaranteed. If anyone believes he'd give anything but a corporate answer, you're dead wrong. Follica owns him and the wounding method, he's NOT going to reveal details.

None of this makes any sense to me at all. SOMEONE is pulling our leg here.

IMO Cotsarelis IS trolling

This "$2 million to bring treatment better than propecia + minox, and $20 million to bring a full blown cure" statement is a joke. If this was the case, then we would already have it and there would be no bald men in sight. That kind of money is NOTHING in a medical/corporate world, especially if they could make BILLIONS of dollars from such investment.

Cotsarelis just didn't want to reveal the details to a random guy, that's all. Makes sense.

[Thinning87]

Hello, I'm Aaron Gardner one of the researchers who was presenting at the WCHR 2014. I found this thread as I was googling one of the other authors to try and find their email address, kind of strange to see me mentioned on the internet .

Linked are the two posters/talks that I presented at the conference for your interest, I guess the inductivity one is of most interest:

http://adobe.ly/1sO7MIV

I would be happy to try and answer any questions you have on my work or on any of the other work I saw presented.

Thank you for sharing and participating to our forum!

I'm sure the more knowledgeable posters in this forum will have more specific questions. There is only one thing the rest of us really wants to find out....

[agardner]

Hello, I'm Aaron Gardner one of the researchers who was presenting at the WCHR 2014. I found this thread as I was googling one of the other authors to try and find their email address, kind of strange to see me mentioned on the internet .

Linked are the two posters/talks that I presented at the conference for your interest, I guess the inductivity one is of most interest:

http://adobe.ly/1sO7MIV

I would be happy to try and answer any questions you have on my work or on any of the other work I saw presented.

[whatsgoingon]

I assume someone is going to compile this thread into an easy to read "what you need to know" post or something. 40+ pages lol so much too read

[nameless]

You seem to be under the impression 2million/20million is a lot of money. 2/20million is pocket change for investors.

If cots had something that's as he said "better than current meds" investors would jump at this. Why fully cure the problem when they can milk every last penny out of the problem. It's there investment and business after all.

I can't imagine cots having any trouble with funding at all. They've had private investments through out all their past/current phases yet now when they can apparently grow new follicles are having money issues? This doesn't not sound right at all.

Something else is the issue. 2million for a new product that would take the market by storm is nothing. In fact it's laughable.

20million for his "cure" is also nothing.

One single celebrity could out right invest 20million, cure everyone and become a multi billionaire..

None of what you have said above tells us with certainty what is going on with Follica.

The only things we know for sure is that he claims he has a treatment that is better than what is available already and that treatment has completed phase 2 so it only needs a phase 3 to complete. We also know that phase 3 for some hair clinical trials were just one year. We know that he claims this treatment is better than minoxidil and propecia so we know it's better than what we currently have. We also know that we are going to have to wait about 8 years for the cell treatments. I think that if you think about all of this it's apparent that we should be trying to find out more about this $2 million treatment because it could serve as a bridge to get us through the next 8 years while we wait for the cell treatments.

[mnhair]

Definitely a mix of good and bad news. At least within the coming years there might be some amazing things out there. The problem is that we need something to get us till then. Since follica is basically out, looks like pilofocus will be more important since that's basically a year or so away.

[Dazza]

No it's not that simple. We don't know for sure what's going on. None of us do. It's possible that investors see these cell therapies in the lab getting better and better so they don't want to invest in a treatment that is not as good as the cell treatments promise to be. Or maybe Cotseralis himself and Follic are pushing for the bigger treatment that will cure everyone and will cost $20 million to fund because they are thinking long term competition with cell therapies. The point is that you don't know their reasons/strategies so to assume the most negative - that he's lying - is really nothing but a guess and you could be very wrong.

You seem to be under the impression 2million/20million is a lot of money. 2/20million is pocket change for investors.

If cots had something that's as he said "better than current meds" investors would jump at this. Why fully cure the problem when they can milk every last penny out of the problem. It's there investment and business after all.

I can't imagine cots having any trouble with funding at all. They've had private investments through out all their past/current phases yet now when they can apparently grow new follicles are having money issues? This doesn't not sound right at all.

Something else is the issue. 2million for a new product that would take the market by storm is nothing. In fact it's laughable.

20million for his "cure" is also nothing.

One single celebrity could out right invest 20million, cure everyone and become a multi billionaire..

[35YrsAfter]

Studies indicate that PGD2 causes apoptosis under certain circumstances in test animals. It could very well be that in MPB, follicles, predetermined to miniaturize attract PGD2 which triggers apoptosis. This could explain the inflammatory reaction and the reason that platelet rich plasma (PRP) increases the hair shaft diameter of miniaturizing hair. Interesting that Emory has been using PRP to treat stubborn sports injuries for years because a patient's own platelet growth factors do a decent job of enhancing/improving healing.

35YrsAfter also posts as CITNews and works at Dr. Cole's office
forhair.com
Cole Hair Transplant
1070 Powers Place
Alpharetta, Georgia 30009
Phone 678-566-1011
email 35YrsAfter at chuck@forhair.com
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

[The Alchemist]

Thats irrelevant, Follica is a business venture with Puretech Ventures backing. Cotsarelis can publish papers all he wants, but Puretech will have agreements with him and Follica of what he can or cannot say about Follica as well as for his own reasons too, its not like he's not going to get a massive payoff when Follica goes commercial. This dude is going to get paid handsomely. Its in his best interest to see Follica go commercial after SEVEN+ years of research and clinical trials.

It's insane to think 'Follica is dead, theyre not going anywhere, Cotsarelis just spent nearly a decade with snake oils in clinical trials'.

They've definitely got SOMETHING....

Another thing to consider is that he's quoted as saying "Follica JUST finished phase II". If that is true, then perhaps they're still in the process of attracting new investors in order to push through on phase III. It all depends on what he means by "just". Could mean within last few months or could be within last few years. I found that statement to be shocking considering that they had started phase II so long ago. I had figured they would've completed that trial at least a year or two back. Maybe they did a IIb or something.

Regardless, we know they're now done with Phase II. If there is no activity (financial) within the next 6-12 months, then i think it's safe to conclude that the reults were poor. They may have done a bit better than prop and minox, but, that is not a high bar to clear. and if they can't control direction or the hairs are not aesthetically pleasing, then it doesn't matter anyway. Nobody wants to look like an old tennis ball. But, if we see some new funding or some other type of clinical activity, then that changes everything and we know we were fed some misdirection from Cots.

Didn't one of the recent tweets from (i forget who Bernat Olle or Zohar) say that they're progressing? I think it was a response to an inquiry made through twitter.

Also, why would they bring in a new CEO if they indeed have no money? How many CEO's out there want to sign on for no money and a product that has no promise?

Things don't add up.