WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[artika]

Hey Aaron,

First of all thanks for joining our forum, you are of great help !

Secondly, will the treatment/cure you are working on (or any other teams) benefit those who suffer from Diffuse Unpatterned Alopecia? So will it restore a full head of hair to even those who have no terminal hairs?

[Armandein]

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.

https://www.dur.ac.uk/biosciences/about/schoolstaff/researchstaff/?id=10057

You are a very valid person in the forum, thank you for your insert

[hellouser]

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.

Would this not be bound to the same strenuous FDA clinical trials that last another 8+ years? As you know, many of us have been desperate for years and decades to move on with our lives, so we're looking at the fastest possible treatment. Is there some other country whose health ministry is less restricting on use of stem cell therapy in which we could see a treatment that actually holds up to the typical 'within 5 years' claim?

Thanks and welcome to the forum!!

[Arashi]

Wow, thanks for your elaborate answer Aaron !! Very well laid out, thanks, that clears up my questions and I understand what you guys are doing now. Will come back later though with some other questions, hope you don't mind

Thanks again for coming to this forum and explaining all this to us, you're our biggest hope for the future, good luck with your experiments !!

[nameless]

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.

In my opinion you do not know what the truth is regarding Cotseralis.

[35YrsAfter]

Yes, when we transplant the DP spheres into the skin they signal to the epidermis, the epidermis forms a placode and signals back down to the sphere.

How is hair growth direction controlled?

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

[nameless]

Yes, when we transplant the DP spheres into the skin they signal to the epidermis, the epidermis forms a placode and signals back down to the sphere.

The epidermis then grows down into the dermis and encapsulates the sphere giving rise to the follicle structure. At this point the interactions between the DP and hair follicle epithelium gives rise to the hair shaft.

This is a really important point, the dermal sphere is not a dermal papilla until it has been encapsulated by a competent epithelium.

When we manage to encapsulate our DP sphere with epithelial cells then we see markers of infuctivity that are normally only seen in the papilla in vivo (they are not seen in uncoated DP spheres). So the technique works really well. But, a lot of the time the epithelium doesn't stick to the DP sphere, if it doesn't stick we don't see these markers being turned on. So we need to figure this out, then assay these double spheres in a follicle forming assay.

Hope that helps

Aaron first let me say thank you for coming here and talking to us.

Secondly, are you saying that when you do manage to encapsulate DP spheres with epithelial cells you get total (100%) preservation of hair inductivity despite mass pass culture?

Thirdly, I think you're saying is that the problem is getting the epithelial cells to stick to the DP cells. I gather that you're saying that sometimes the epithelial cells do stick to the DP cells but other times they don't. Since sometimes the epithelial cells do stick to the DP cells I'm wondering why you can't simply isolate the method that results in the epithelial cells sticking to the DP cells and only use that method? In other words, since you are able to make the epithelial cells stick to DP cells sometimes then just use the method that results in the epithelial cells sticking to the DP cells and the problem is solved, right?

4th, when you do get the epithelial cells to stick to the DP cells what do you differently from when epithelial cells don't stick to the DP cells?

Lastly, what are you going to try to do to get the epithelial cells to stick to the DP cells? Do you have any ideas?

[Arashi]

How is hair growth direction controlled?

Good question indeed. I remember how Tsuji lab inserted a nylon thread onto the engineered follicles to guide the hairs to grow outward. Although this worked I'm not sure if this would be a feasible solution for the clinic. Are you guys working on something similar ?

[GuyFromUK]

Would this not be bound to the same strenuous FDA clinical trials that last another 8+ years? As you know, many of us have been desperate for years and decades to move on with our lives, so we're looking at the fastest possible treatment. Is there some other country whose health ministry is less restricting on use of stem cell therapy in which we could see a treatment that actually holds up to the typical 'within 5 years' claim?

Thanks and welcome to the forum!!

His entire point is when it comes progress will come quickly but as yet the "cure" hasn't been found yet and so it is impossible to say "when". There is no point fixating all the time on how lengthy you perceive the FDA trials to be.

[Artha]

It took over 2 years before the FDA approve AZT (a HIV-AIDS drugs). And that was an emergency, so imagine the time for hair loss! Maybe 4-5 years after that patent was approve, its take longer for no emergency drugs.

[hellouser]

His entire point is when it comes progress will come quickly but as yet the "cure" hasn't been found yet and so it is impossible to say "when". There is no point fixating all the time on how lengthy you perceive the FDA trials to be.

I didn't ask for 'when' it will be released. I want to know if the success of this can somehow see the day that it won't be stalled by stone age regulations.

[hgs1989]

guys seriously cloning and these stuff are really far to be discussed as a potential cure. the technology is still in the lab. commercialization is going to take forever. maybe 5 years is what it will take to solve it in the lab.10 years is a very optimistic timeline for a commercial product. it is like Cotsarelis saying 5 years we will have something back in 2008. they might crack it in the lab and get it all done before but a viable commercial product is very far.I don't have high hopes for this.

[hellouser]

guys seriously cloning and these stuff are really far to be discussed as a potential cure. the technology is still in the lab. commercialization is going to take forever. maybe 5 years is what it will take to solve it in the lab.10 years is a very optimistic timeline for a commercial product. it is like Cotsarelis saying 5 years we will have something back in 2008. they might crack it in the lab and get it all done before but a viable commercial product is very far.I don't have high hopes for this.

No, Cotsarelis specifically said it'd be a 'few years' before they've have something thats available as a new treatment. He says this in the following video at the 2:12 mark;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLaMBHIdBs

But that's not the point because all of us seem to be fixated on the notion that treatments can only be done in USA. There are 193 other independent countries outside of USA. I'm sure there are some that would allow research teams as well as biotechs move at a faster pace. Any trials done in USA are going to be financial suicide.

[bigentries]

His entire point is when it comes progress will come quickly but as yet the "cure" hasn't been found yet and so it is impossible to say "when". There is no point fixating all the time on how lengthy you perceive the FDA trials to be.

Yeah, he is right in the sense that, no timeline is good, someone is going to crack it one day, and money talks, things are going to move fast after that

Hellouser just has a vendetta against the FDA for some reason, when no single hair loss treatment in the last 30 years has gotten to Phase III, the Phase he claims is slowing things.

[walrus]

when no single hair loss treatment in the last 30 years has gotten to Phase III, the Phase he claims is slowing things.

And without the FDA, early adopters (such as people here) would be the first to complain about side effects.