WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[Desmond84]

Desmond, we all very much APPRECIATE your time and effort in attending the Conference and then connecting with prevalent doctors dedicated to their research. I hope that you had developed the 'thick-skin' needed to be able to deal with certain aspects to all of this....
Thank you so much Desmond !! CHEERS
(Ill watch the video now)

Hahahha Artista :-) Thank you so much!

All good. Pretty much everyones been lovely throughout this whole project. There's always some skepticism, which is understandable. We are all anonymous after all

[hellouser]

I spoke to 3 teams that are at the forefront of engineering a hair follicle. All 3 teams believed that we are within 2-3 years of growing fully functional hair follicles in a lab setting. It's just a matter of trying several different combination to get the DP cells to instruct hair follicle formation. They believe most of those combinations will be trialed within that timeframe. I actually said to one team "So you think we'll have engineered hairs on a human scalp by 2020" and they looked at me with a very confident face and said even sooner than that! So I don't know if that is a good sign for everyone or not! I was pretty certain most of them are onto something big!

Hope that helps brother.

We gotta ensure that whoever finishes first runs their clinical trials in Japan!

Check out what Gremlin wrote in the Replicel thread:

Now I was reading about this specific law Replicel is using to speed the delivery of their product in Japan and according to Market Watch - a reputable site dealing with business news "Japan's new policy requires an early stage clinical trial (call it a Phase I or small Phase II) at the minimum to confirm safety of the therapy and provide some plausible evidence of efficacy. Rather than requiring that the therapy then be evaluated in subsequent trials before making it available to patients, Japan's new law will allow for a "conditional approval" enabling the product to be brought to market, and for the product to obtain reimbursement in an accelerated manner."

So if I understand this correctly, does this not mean that they can start testing it on patients right away since they have already completed their phase 1 trial?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jap...-be-2014-03-03

[Desmond84]

Yes. I couldn't agree with you more Hell. We got our foot in the door. Many scientists are now aware of our existence. So many of them were actually blown away that we were following their work so closely. It gave them a slight boost I would say.

So, we should really keep a close watch on how the Japan policy pans out and what are the requirements and once a team has a working solution we can provide them with up to date information about how to go about releasing it in a clinical setting.

Big thumbs up dude

[Le Bald]

Hi Desmond,

My apologies, didn't mean to sound disrespectful before - just needed an interpretation for us dumb people


Is this then moving to holy grail of unlimited donor? Is that the goal?

Cheers,

Le bald

[Paul73]

Hi Desmond, i have been following your efforts and would like to congratulate you and all the people here that are trying to make things happen. This attitude will make the difference if we want something happening in the near future.

I don't know if someone asked you before, so please sorry if i am repeating a question, but were Histogen or Replicel mentioned during the Congress? Are you optimistic about them and do you think that someone who already did a HT will still be a candidate for these regenerative treatments?

Thanks!

[Desmond84]

Hi Desmond,

My apologies, didn't mean to sound disrespectful before - just needed an interpretation for us dumb people


Is this then moving to holy grail of unlimited donor? Is that the goal?

Cheers,

Le bald

No problems my man...not disrespectful at all! I was replying to answers and working on the videos at the same time, so my reply was a bit fast-paced! LOL

During these presentations, you will notice that many of them are getting great results in terms of restoring hair inductivity in the early passages of DP culturing. Not so much in the latter passages. SO I actually asked them if that is a problem and would they have enough DP produced with these early passages to completely restore a bald scalp. The answer was: "the number of DP cells cultured in these early passages is sufficient to restore hairs on a scalp who is above NW6 and even maybe NW7!"

I could literally hear my heart pounding rapidly when I heard that response.

[brunobald]

Hi Desmond many thanks for your work, I hope you got a lot out of your trip.

Is hair restoration the main aim of any of the groups. Or is it seen as a spin off application to a much bigger aim like for example creating other oragans using the same technique and the hair follicule is only being used becasue it is easy to harvest the stems cell, follicles etc..

[Desmond84]

Hi Desmond, i have been following your efforts and would like to congratulate you and all the people here that are trying to make things happen. This attitude will make the difference if we want something happening in the near future.

I don't know if someone asked you before, so please sorry if i am repeating a question, but were Histogen or Replicel mentioned during the Congress? Are you optimistic about them and do you think that someone who already did a HT will still be a candidate for these regenerative treatments?

Thanks!

Hi brother,

Unfortunately, Histogen & Replicel did not attend the congress but Dr McElwee (CEO of Replicel) did. He was actually the chairman of a few presentations and did a talk as well. His presentation was not related to his work with Replicel and was purely academic. I don't remember anything outstanding from his presentation either.

To my surprise Aderans was present and they had a 30 minute presentation on "Evidence for Wig Effect on Quality of Life of Hair Loss Patients"! It was so painful to see how low they've come that I didn't even attend their poster presentation. It seemed to me that they have lost all interest in cell therapy.

This is my take on our situation. We can break down hair treatments into THREE categories:

1) Available therapies: Finasteride, Dutasteride, Minoxidil

2) Transition therapies: These are therapies that are on par with our current treatments or maybe slightly more effective and may become available before the end of this decade. Histogen & Replicel fall into this category as well as CB-03-01. CB is my personal favourite and I think will provide a great solution to many early sufferers.

3) Hair regeneration: this is what many call the 'ultimate cure' and involves growing hair follicles in a lab and then transplanting it. Our aim in terms of attending this congress was to gauge how close we are to reaching this goal and so far the signs have been VERY positive indeed with most researchers being quite optimistic about timelines. My guess is it may become available in a clinical setting by early 2020s if one of these teams cracks it in the next 3 years.

Hope that helps

[Paul73]

Wow, it certainly helped! I appreciated how you organized the response. You made a honest and simple picture on where we are and how we are. Thank you!

I just like to know two last things, i know you have been busy:

- In the case of regenerative therapies, do you think that they could be used for those who already had hair transplant? Will the scar tissues in the recipient area prevent miniaturized /dormant follicles from producing health hairs again?

- Until we put our hands on CB, do you think that RU can be an alternative? I am very afraid of the risk of cancer in the long run!

Sorry for any english mistakes and thanks again! Your attention to everyone here is admirable.

[hellouser]

3) Hair regeneration: this is what many call the 'ultimate cure' and involves growing hair follicles in a lab and then transplanting it. Our aim in terms of attending this congress was to gauge how close we are to reaching this goal and so far the signs have been VERY positive indeed with most researchers being quite optimistic about timelines. My guess is it may become available in a clinical setting by early 2020s if one of these teams cracks it in the next 3 years.

Hope that helps

I don't understand this. If a team cracks it within 3 years, lets say in 2017, why would clinical trials need to be delayed for another 3 or more years?

[Arashi]

I don't understand this. If a team cracks it within 3 years, lets say in 2017, why would clinical trials need to be delayed for another 3 or more years?

I think Desmond means with 'clinical setting' simply available in the clinic.

[hellouser]

I think Desmond means with 'clinical setting' simply available in the clinic.

My bad, I read it wrong. But 6 years aint TOO bad... If any team has it cracked now, it could be reduced significantly given Japan's deregulation.... or India (though with a credible doctor).

[Desmond84]

Wow, it certainly helped! I appreciated how you organized the response. You made a honest and simple picture on where we are and how we are. Thank you!

I just like to know two last things, i know you have been busy:

- In the case of regenerative therapies, do you think that they could be used for those who already had hair transplant? Will the scar tissues in the recipient area prevent miniaturized /dormant follicles from producing health hairs again?

- Until we put our hands on CB, do you think that RU can be an alternative? I am very afraid of the risk of cancer in the long run!

Sorry for any english mistakes and thanks again! Your attention to everyone here is admirable.

Its no problem at all

From what I understood during the congress, there are TWO possible approaches to create a fully functional hair follicle:

a) A fully functional hair follicle is produced in a lab setting on a chip or growth medium and then transplanted; or

b) A mini-follicle is produced in a lab and then implanted into the recipient area. This mini-follicle will then interact with the surrounding environment (epidermal layer) to sprout a hair follicle.

Now, which way it will turn out to be remain elusive at this point in time but the ramifications of these therapies can be significant for patients with scar tissue. If the first method becomes the gold standard then at least in theory there should be no issues for patients who have scar tissue present in their scalp area, since, an entire follicle with all of its appendages are implanted, very much like a hair graft during transplantation.

But, if the second method is the only way they could produce the hair follicle then the scar tissue may become a problem.

___________________________________

As for your second question regarding RU.

It is important to know the difference between RU & CB. Although they are both anti-androgens, RU is an active ingredient with 20-30% systemic absorption after topical application.

CB on the other, is only active when applied to the skin. By the time it reaches into the lower skin layers and enters the bloodstream, specific enzymes have broken it down to inactive chemicals that are rapidly excreted from the body.

That is why so many ppl still report sexual adverse effects after using RU. So in my opinion either take micro-doses of Finasteride orally (0.25mg/twice per week) or crush it up and dissolve it in a vehicle and apply it topically. At least you know the safety record of finasteride and possible long term effects. As a member said earlier with RU you are playing a russian roulette or RU Roulette LOL.

I personally have been taking 0.25mg of fin twice per week for well over 20 months now and have maintained my hair at baseline and have seen all the adverse effects resolve after the first 12 months.

Hope that helps brother and all the best. All we can do is make the best decisions with the information available and although RU may be safe we just don't know enough about it!

Cheers

[Desmond84]

My bad, I read it wrong. But 6 years aint TOO bad... If any team has it cracked now, it could be reduced significantly given Japan's deregulation.... or India (though with a credible doctor).

Yeah sorry Hell. I meant for patient to access from their doctor

[Desmond84]

Guys btw, I just watched some of the presentation by Dr Rei Ogawa (The Japanese team I was telling you about). It is so fascinating. I really want you guys to watch it. I should hopefully have it up by tomorrow sometime. He is doing some crazy things and seeing results! It's so out there that for the first 5 minutes I thought I was at the wrong lecture LOL. I actually was so blown away by this lecture that I ran up to him to ask for a quick one on one chat but he was catching a flight that same morning to Seoul to present his findings at ANOTHER conference!!! An awesome guy in my opinion.

Stay tuned for this one Its 50 minutes but it's well worth it!