WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[Arashi]

in spite of the positive developments researchers made, these last congress news from desmond opened my eyes. baldness is unstoppable for another decade at least. wouldn't be surprised if even more delays come and add some additional years.
if it even turns out that there are still some unsolved problems which have to be researched first within the next years, we then even have no guarantee that something will be here in 10 years definitely. thus, no bridging plans can be worked out if we are not sure a cure will come. don't know what to say anymore. it's all over in my opinion. another decade time for all the scammers out there to sell bogus treatments. and another decade for nigam to mess around. i still can't believe nothing came out of his doubling stuff. not one single case he can show where doubling was successful. what a clown.

Let's first wait on Desmond's reports and recordings before drawing definite conclusions, that was the whole reason he went there ! If you are surprised by the fact that we need clinical trials, anybody could have told you that. It's just a fact of the western world. It's bad for us but compared to the more serious stuff hairloss is a joke man. For example, Merck currently holds a medicine that halts melanoma cancer growth in 88% of the people (while normally these poor people die within a year). They called it MK-3475. They have it in their hands and it works. But they cant release it to the public just yet, although they've succesfully finished phase III trials, they still need to go through FDA clearance, which might take another 6 months. A lot of people with metastatic melanoma's wont live anymore by then ... Can you imagine their frustration ? There's a drug that can save their life but they're not allowed to take it. That just puts our problems in perspective man ...

[Kudu]

Let's first wait on Desmond's reports and recordings before drawing definite conclusions, that was the whole reason he went there ! If you are surprised by the fact that we need clinical trials, anybody could have told you that. It's just a fact of the western world. It's bad for us but compared to the more serious stuff hairloss is a joke man. For example, Merck currently holds a medicine that halts melanoma cancer growth in 88% of the people (while normally these poor people die within a year). They called it MK-3475. They have it in their hands and it works. But they cant release it to the public just yet, although they've succesfully finished phase III trials, they still need to go through FDA clearance, which might take another 6 months. A lot of people with metastatic melanoma's wont live anymore by then ... That just puts our problems in perspective man ...

Damn, I couldn't imagine knowing that there was a treatment that could save my life yet unable use due to clearance...

[Kudu]

Let's first wait on Desmond's reports and recordings before drawing definite conclusions, that was the whole reason he went there ! If you are surprised by the fact that we need clinical trials, anybody could have told you that. It's just a fact of the western world. It's bad for us but compared to the more serious stuff hairloss is a joke man. For example, Merck currently holds a medicine that halts melanoma cancer growth in 88% of the people (while normally these poor people die within a year). They called it MK-3475. They have it in their hands and it works. But they cant release it to the public just yet, although they've succesfully finished phase III trials, they still need to go through FDA clearance, which might take another 6 months. A lot of people with metastatic melanoma's wont live anymore by then ... That just puts our problems in perspective man ...

Damn, I couldn't imagine knowing that there was a treatment that could save my life yet unable use due to clearance... You would think more people would be pushing for reform.

[J_B_Davis]

Let's first wait on Desmond's reports and recordings before drawing definite conclusions, that was the whole reason he went there ! If you are surprised by the fact that we need clinical trials, anybody could have told you that. It's just a fact of the western world. It's bad for us but compared to the more serious stuff hairloss is a joke man. For example, Merck currently holds a medicine that halts melanoma cancer growth in 88% of the people (while normally these poor people die within a year). They called it MK-3475. They have it in their hands and it works. But they cant release it to the public just yet, although they've succesfully finished phase III trials, they still need to go through FDA clearance, which might take another 6 months. A lot of people with metastatic melanoma's wont live anymore by then ... Can you imagine their frustration ? There's a drug that can save their life but they're not allowed to take it. That just puts our problems in perspective man ...

Well said Arashi. People really need to keep things in perspective. There has actually been some good news for those suffering with late stage melanoma who qualify for MK-3475.

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/patient1/Fantastic-news-for-late-stage-melanoma-patients.html

What frustrates me most about some of the guys on this forum is they are so busy concentrating on what they don’t have instead of focussing on all that they do have. Good health, both physical and mental is #1. Hair loss sucks, but it can be conquered with a healthy mind and spirit.

[joachim]

yes, that's hard.

indeed i'm often ashamed of myself when i take baldness so serious while there are so many other people around with life threatening pains and diseases.

however, hairloss is still a huge problem for all of us. for me personally, hairloss has changed my life to the negative and it will never be the same again. it's all in our heads, and everyone's case is relative. most non-balding persons will never understand what's going on in our minds, because it's "only" a cosmetic problem. for me, it's actually the biggest pain in the a** and i can't stand the ups and downs anymore in this forum.

[J_B_Davis]

yes, that's hard.

indeed i'm often ashamed of myself when i take baldness so serious while there are so many other people around with life threatening pains and diseases.

however, hairloss is still a huge problem for all of us. for me personally, hairloss has changed my life to the negative and it will never be the same again. it's all in our heads, and everyone's case is relative. most non-balding persons will never understand what's going on in our minds, because it's "only" a cosmetic problem. for me, it's actually the biggest pain in the a** and i can't stand the ups and downs anymore in this forum.

There is no doubt that it’s hard. I would not be here if I was completely cool with it, but life does go on if you let it. I looked much better with a full head of hair, but I never let that get in the way of my life. I’m on this forum for the same reasons as everyone else, but sitting on pins an needles waiting for any scrap of news that gives us hope for a “cure” is not a healthy way to live. I take what I can form what I read and there are weeks that I don’t even come here

[Mugwump]

Hey guys.

I've been lurking on this site for a couple of months now and sometimes in these arguments I do not know who I should be listening to.

I know that Desmond is a Ph.D student but is anyone else here a hair researcher/bio grad student?

I'm a long time lurker too...

Current med student in Philadelphia but have a studied molecular bio and biochemistry in undergrad and in a masters program. Even still, some of this stuff is way over my head and probably is for others too.

As an aside, I used to work in research at a U Penn affiliated lab (Dr. Cotsarelis is Penn affiliated). Never knew of the guy because I was really really low on the food chain and worked in heme/onc, but from his profile it looks like he is still a clinician too. Having worked with research physicians I bet his interests extend way beyond just trying to discover novel treatments for hair loss. I'm sure like anyone he would be interested in making money from the silver-bullet solution to hair loss, but a lot of big time research scientists are way more into their actual publications and research achievements. I personally know of some people in research who could care less about money, but care A LOT about their publications, contributions to their field, awards and accolades, etc. They have reputations within their field that they are way more concerned about than money. Maybe this guy falls into this field. Who knows?

What I mean is that I just can't see this guy going after a $2 mil crowdsourcing plan. He could end up looking kind of goofy to his colleagues. Just my 2 cents.

Although I could totally be wrong too. Maybe he is just trying to make a buck. You never know with the dermatology guys - they like to get paid. ;-)

Anyway, I'm really interested to read/watch the stuff Desmond has gathered.

[nameless]

if lauster, jahoda and Xu are really at least 5 years away from a working proof of concept, i mean a perfectly cloned hair, then we should really consider investigating what Dr. Cots has, and if he really is able to bring a kind of bridge for 2 million crowdfunded money. like i said, if he is able to create some hairs with wounding and lithium but maybe not that dense as desired then it's still worth a try. i think it can't be worse than histogen if he says it would be better than minox and fin. the big difference here is, creating hair denovo on bald scalp, not only maintain existing hairs.
however, maybe he is talking BS and wants to get some money, but we should try to find it out and not ignore it. we're talking about wounding for years now but we still don't have a clue how it works. is it just firing a laser onto the skin and apply a lotion or what is about?
we need his phase2 trial results to get an idea of what is going on.

and damn, also i would like to hear an official statement from him why they stated they were able to create consistently new hairs and VERY CLOSE to releasing a product. it's not funny anymore.

we need to bridge the next 10 years somehow, and CB and pilofocus won't do that job.

as soon as we have more details from desmond, we seriously should try to get in touch with him for a little a talk. we will then quickly find out if he is bullshi****** around and making a fool of us or not.

+1

You hit the nail on the head. I'm saying and thinking the exact same thing.

[Sogeking]

yes, that's hard.

indeed i'm often ashamed of myself when i take baldness so serious while there are so many other people around with life threatening pains and diseases.

however, hairloss is still a huge problem for all of us. for me personally, hairloss has changed my life to the negative and it will never be the same again. it's all in our heads, and everyone's case is relative. most non-balding persons will never understand what's going on in our minds, because it's "only" a cosmetic problem. for me, it's actually the biggest pain in the a** and i can't stand the ups and downs anymore in this forum.

Hey man, to be honest with you I am rooting more for a possibility of slowing or reversing aging, than a hairloss cure . Imagine if they could reverse aging, than a severeal years being bald doesn't mean a thing .

However on the aging front we are kinda 2-3 decades away :/.

I agree that hairloss sucks, enough so that I am willing to frequent message boards and hope for the cure, but you know what life goes on. There are so many fascinating stuff coming. Science is amazing. MY main reason to have hair is just being more attractive to girls and finding that someone, however they say to some girls having hair is not important. I'll test that theory and let others know .


Yeah the hair loss cure is 10+ years away. It sucks big time. But still there will be a cure, we know it.

[kobefan234]

i guess my bridge will be fin for the next xx amount of years.

[nameless]

i guess my bridge will be fin for the next xx amount of years.

What's wrong with possibly crowd-funding $2 million so we can turn Cotserlis's $2 million treatment plan into our bridge?

[locke999]

i guess my bridge will be fin for the next xx amount of years.

If you are able to take fin without side effects then why wouldn't you.

It's either you can take it or you can't. If you can, you don't need to worry and start saving your hair now.

I wish I didn't have side effects from taking it, but because I do, I am still on this forum. If I didn't, I would take it everyday and no worry another day about hair loss.

[Thinning@30]

I'm actually looking forward to hearing about the burning scalp syndrome presentation. I have terrible scalp itch and it sometimes manifests as a painful burning sensation. I really hope there was some good news on this condition.

[JZA70]

Although baldness isn't a threat to your health, it can still easily destroy your life.

We cant undermine the damage that hair loss has done to us. Hair loss should be ranked up there with other serious diseases.

It will be a real kick in the teeth if most of us go through our 20's and 30's with hair loss and then a full blown cure gets released when we are in our 40's and 50's.

Its a shame because we only live once. No amount of hair can ever give us our youth back.

[HairlossAt15]

Lets not spam the thread with our sob stories (bit late now) lol.