WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[35YrsAfter]

@sdsurfin

Good points about the condition of the entire scalp. My thoughts have been along the same lines. I have miniaturization everywhere, and my entire scalp has become hard and inflamed.

I agree that it is a problem of inflammation and immune response.

Hopefully these brilliant researchers are well on their way to tackling the scalp environment issue as well.

Being a diffuse thinner, isn't fun!

I have used hydrocortisone 1% over the counter and surprisingly for me, it kept the telogen phase under control. In other words, more of my hair stayed in its anagen phase. Men with MPB have a higher percentage of hair in the telogen phase in their balding areas than men without MPB. When I had poison ivy, I used the prescription topical, Cordran SP (another corticosteroid) and my hair grew thicker on top. It has a listed side effect of excessive hair growth. How awful.

One line of thinking related to MPB goes like this:

Prostaglandin D2 (PGD2) saturates genetically predetermined miniaturizing hair follicles. PGD2 apparently is a hair growth inhibitor. I personally believe that PGD2 blocks blood platelet growth factors. In other words the hair starves. The body interprets miniaturization as damage and the body's immune system goes to work finishing off your follicles by attacking them (inflammation). Corticosteroid use runs the risk of thinning your skin. Dermatologists recommend using it sparingly

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

[hellouser]

He is an academic, and Follica are just a spin off he is involved in. His main concern is more likely to be publishing papers in peer reviewed journals.

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....

[nameless]

Exactly. None of this makes any sense.

Why wouldn't investors want a product which is apparently much better than current treatments? Something about that just doesn't add up.

Its either their product doesn't work and they've been actively lying to the press to perhaps get investors interested to fund there work.
Or
Investors have seen their work and simply don't see anything there.

He's lying. It's that simple.

Maybe we should try and get answers from R. Rox Anderson. This is where we need that voice. Something Spencer could help with. Chances of that happening? slim.

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.

I think we should try to find a way to get more information from Follica/Cotseralis. His $2 million treatment might be the only bridge that can help us for the next 8 years so before we disengage from it we better do what we can to shed some light on the situation before we write it off. Even if it can't be compounded it might still give much better results than what we have today.

And I do not think it would take 3 or 4 years to get it to market if it only needs a phase 3. Completing a phase 3 and getting the product to market would be about 1 1/2 to 2 years.

[walrus]

Follica owns him and the wounding method

He is an academic, and Follica are just a spin off he is involved in. His main concern is more likely to be publishing papers in peer reviewed journals.

[joachim]

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.

agreed. but how to proceed now? does anyone have the direct mail address of cots? i'm not sure if desmond got the business card from cots to contact him.

[Dazza]

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?

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.

Exactly. None of this makes any sense.

Why wouldn't investors want a product which is apparently much better than current treatments? Something about that just doesn't add up.

Its either their product doesn't work and they've been actively lying to the press to perhaps get investors interested to fund there work.
Or
Investors have seen their work and simply don't see anything there.

He's lying. It's that simple.

Maybe we should try and get answers from R. Rox Anderson. This is where we need that voice. Something Spencer could help with. Chances of that happening? slim.

[hellouser]

From what I remember Desmond saying they finished phase 2 but are on hold due to money issues. I am pretty sure they have not started phase 3. If they get an injection of mony then they can start phase 3 but that'll prob take another 2-3 years of approval right? So 4 years from now if we can get them 2 million by start of next year.

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.

[Almostthere]

From what I remember Desmond saying they finished phase 2 but are on hold due to money issues. I am pretty sure they have not started phase 3. If they get an injection of mony then they can start phase 3 but that'll prob take another 2-3 years of approval right? So 4 years from now if we can get them 2 million by start of next year.

[hellouser]

Let's ignore Dr. Cotsarelis' 2 million dollar claim for a moment;

Would Follica have to wait for the FDA to give them clearance to start Phase III? If they finished Phase II last year, shouldn't they have started Phase III by now? If they haven't started Phase III but are allowed to move forward, why the hell wouldn't they have already started by now?

I don't care what some of you guys say, any treatment that is superior to finasteride/minoxidil would be a welcome addition and I'd be on it RIGHT NOW. We're all desperate for treatments so I don't see why we would denigrate Follica's method.

[beetee]

I suspect follica is not going to respond. From what I heard from Dr. Garza at Penn, the PDG2 thing is still being worked out, and they are trying to find the right compounds still. That's probably what Cotsarellis was talking about when he said they needed 2 mil for a treatment. Bimatoprost works on PDG2 and I suspect they have the capacity to find a more specific compound, but also according to Garza, they are underfunded for sure.

I'm a little confused by some elements of this, perhaps you could shed some light. I have only seen Garza comment on Allergen's Bimatoprost product for hair that they're currently testing in one article, and in it he did not say that the project was underfunded but that they were having a hard time with getting the medicine to be effectively delivered to the follicle. Is there an article where he says they're having a problem with funding? If so, can you please post a citation to it?

[Arashi]

I thought we all proved Pilox was a scam??? Where are vrafs pics?

Please keep pilox out of this thread.

[Arashi]

the interesting thing is, they say that under the right conditions the cells self-assemble themselves, and even produce the extracellalur matrix. they also say that some proteins are added like collagen to accelerate the process.

my opinion:
the right mixture here seems to be the key of self-assembling follicles. this is where the biochip comes into play. it has the ability to add different proteins, oxygen and other required stuff to the follicle environment, exactly with the right timing.
the correct recipe should then lead to more or less good hairs. optimizing this culturing recipe is probably what they are still working on. probably hundrets of different protocols have to be tested and compared. and i assume even with the right recipe not all hair aggregates start producing hair. there's probably some failure rate. the cells which don't develop a hair can be thrown away.

however, this is a totally different approach compared to what jahoda and Xu are trying.
i don't care about what they are saying. lausters team is far ahead. just my 2 cents.

About those self assembling cells, that's what I told you. It's not just something that happens with Lauster's Team, that's just how it works. When put in the right environment, the cells start to build hair (producing) follicles themselves, that's exactly what Tsuji labs and Jahoda reported too.

About Lauster being ahead, I doubt it. Lauster, Tsuji and Jahoda, I think they're all operating on the cutting edge, all reported engineering hair producing follicles in the past and who knows where they are now ..

[fuzzyballs]

I never said it was the cure. It is the next best thing. Isotephersis WORKS. It's a fact. Zinc blocks DHT and is good for hair. It's a fact. It's only logical that using zinc with the best delivery system available today (far better than oral delivery) would offer good results.

Look at vrafs latest side by side.. and thats only 5 months! fin takes 12-18 months for the final conclusion. look at the other results too!

I'm not just guessing. The background science is there...

I thought we all proved Pilox was a scam??? Where are vrafs pics?

[Haircure]

@nameless
Again you are missing the entire point of my comments. The follica treatment relies on skin perturbation as an access for the fgf9 growth factor to be effective. You are confusing wounding with something he published years ago, where I believe that he noticed that the wounding caused some form of hair growth which was exemplified in the examples of hair transplants where he found that hair grew near the recipient sites. I believe it was this that resulted in people realizing that prp treatments could mimic that effect. So in short wounding doesn't seem to be the main factor in follicas approach rather it's thier growth factor. Finally if a compound is known and had been tested, it may have to go through fewer trials for safety as opposed to new compounds

[sdsurfin]

http://www.biotechnologie.de/BIO/Nav...id=103250.html

this article here from oct. 2009 is also extremely interesting. this was when team lauster/lindner created the first follicle. but there are more details in the article than i saw previously on the other newssites. it's actually in german. maybe someome with good german/english translation skills can help out.

some important points in the article:

- the bioreactor was developed in cooperation with the max planck institute from 2005 to 2009 to enable automatic culturing of cells in dishes for creating an optimum environment, thus eliminating a lot of errors.

- they are also working hard on creating artificial skin, both dermis and epidermis. the ultimate goal of them is to combine the lab-grown skin including blood vessels with the lab-grown follicles to enable 60-days continous testing for cosmetics someday. but the follicles alone for curing baldness should be ready first (as it's easier than combining both follicles and skin)

- there are also some words on how they isolate the different cells from the follicle and multiply them without losing their properties (but not really detailed explained). however it tells me they are pretty aware of all culturing problems and tried to keep the cell's hair properties from the beginning. they try to get very close to perfect created hair because otherwise the cosmetics test wouldn't make sense.

- the follicle they created in 2009 was actually a little bit smaller and a little bit thinner than normal hair (therefore called microfollicle), but very similar to normal hair in its other properties. i assume they managed in the meantime how to grow the follicle bigger, this should be no obstacle anymore. it's been more than 4 years since then.
generally it sounds like they know all the tricks how to isolate, multiply and combine the cells to send the right signals to tell the aggregate it should produce hair.
i can only imagine how far they got within all these years.

- it also says they are looking for a partner in the industry to further develop the hairs. as this was in 2009 i assume they found their partner.

Those are a lot of assumptions. But I think that fully grown lab follicles will be created by either the germans or the japanese (always the best engineers!) in the coming decades. According to that 2013 paper, they are still only making "neopapillae". The big question seems to be whether a cluster of DP cells is enough to create a cosmetic hair in balding scalp. I have no idea really, and i don't know if the scientists do either.

I don't think there's a question at this point that we will be either the last or the second to last generation to have to go bald. I think that even with fully formed follicles from scratch, they are going to run into a lot of other issues. I still don't see how cycling and angle and formation of sebaceous glands have a solution. I'm sure it exists, but it probably has to do with the complex signaling pathways and growth factors that happen between the different hair and skin cells.

The future of regenerative medicine looks truly amazing in general, and from what I've seen I think we should ask Lauster's team if they need more funding and are willing to work on crowdfunding. I suspect follica is not going to respond. From what I heard from Dr. Garza at Penn, the PDG2 thing is still being worked out, and they are trying to find the right compounds still. That's probably what Cotsarellis was talking about when he said they needed 2 mil for a treatment. Bimatoprost works on PDG2 and I suspect they have the capacity to find a more specific compound, but also according to Garza, they are underfunded for sure.

There's a race right now to make a follicle, but I do think that the DP multipication aspect is very crucial, and I'm curious to see what desmond posts in that respect. Just because you can take a bunch of DP cells out and then put them back together in clumps doesnt mean you're gonna have enough of them to repopulate a scalp.

PS that article in german can be translated by clicking the "english" option at the top of the page