WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[joachim]

http://www.biotechnologie.de/BIO/Nav...id=167608.html

here is anoter article about the german researchers Lauster and Marx.
If you want I can translate it tomorrow. Most important line: "Schon im kommenden Jahr wollen die Berliner in klinischen Studien ihre Haarkommandozentralen am Menschen erproben."
That means that next year, article was posted in 2013 so I mean 2014, clinical trials will begin to test the hair-commando-central-unit in humans.

hey sascha, what a great find!!! i just read the article (my first language is also german) and i'm impressed. the article indeed says that first tests/trials on human should start in 2014. i wonder if they told that desmond too, or didn't they disclose it. i assume this trials can be seen as phase 0 then. phase 1 could start in 3 or 4 years according to desmond's opinion. not sure why he thinks that. maybe he is right because they still have some work to do. on the other side, if everything goes well with their first tests, maybe an official phase 1 could start sooner. phase 1 is the most critical milestone here.

[joachim]

really seems like they are even ahead of tsuji labs and jahoda.

but who knows. maybe just another article which gives us hope but doesn't mean anything.

again, we need desmond here with his info. and the recorded video about the biochip.

[sascha]

really seems like they are even ahead of tsuji labs and jahoda.

but who knows. maybe just another article which gives us hope but doesn't mean anything.

again, we need desmond here with his info. and the recorded video about the biochip.

Yes I think Desmond is totally badass and I can´t wait until he clears things up, but lets face it he does not know whats going on. Spencer does not know. Joe does not know and of course I do not know(actually I know even less than nothing ). This article is pretty interesting. we can discuss it tomorrow my friends always look on the bright side of life (and whoever whistled after reading this line...I salute you )

[joachim]

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.

[nameless]

Didn't Desmond say that whatever the researchers presented was at least 10-12 months old work? So how is it hard to believe that they did his wounding therapy, FGF9 and PGD2 a while back? It makes sense now those research papers he published are done months after and even possibly years after the initial results, trials and findings. That and the take home message from the start was that Follica is a very secretive company so it would be safe to assume that whatever cots has published via research article has already seen some form of trial. And lastly the treatment that was promised I believe was light skin perturbation via peeling the scalp in order to prime it for applying the growth factor FGF9 and or a PGD2 inhibitor. If I'm not mistaken these substances are know to the FDA so who is to say they haven't trialled it already?

I can't recall the specifics but from the things that Cotseralis said in the news over the past couple years I do not believe that it's possible that he was talking about either FGF9 or PGD2 when he said recently completed phase 2 trials . I don't think that the timeline works for either of those 2 treatments. For example, I do recall Cotseralis saying about 2 years ago that PGD2 would need to go through all human trials for hair loss and it seems to me that 2 years is not enough to get through 2 trials because before you start them you have to make submissions to FDA and the FDA has to approve phase 1 to start. Then when phase 1 is done the researcher has to turn in the results to the FDA and given approval before phase 2 can start. To process the necessary paperwork to initiate phase 1 and complete phase and phase 2 would take about 3 to 3.5 years. Sorry but it doesn't seem possible to me.

[kobefan234]

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.

unfortunately, I am not immune to the side effects of fin. I get short term memory loss, impaired cognition, slurred speech sometimes. I feel that it impairs my ability to put concepts to my memory. So essentially its the brain fog which is the worst side effect of fin. Absolutely terrible

[Haircure]

What Cotsarelis and the media have stated over the years was that the treatment that was supposed to be released the soonest involved scalp perturbation and then a lotion with FGF9 to induce growth. That is what was supposed to be released,then another study of his was brought to attention regarding PGD2 and it's possible involvement in repressing hair growth. And again like Desmond stated and something that seems very plausible is that whatever studies and tests are done, the reports of those studies/tests are given out in the form of research papers many months later so say 2 years ago he published his article on PGD2 , that would obviously mean he has been working on it much longer before it was published and it's not something he published right after. Also if I'm not mistaken these compounds they may potentially work with have are already known to the FDA through other tests so it might be likely that these will go through trials and be approved much faster.

Although all this may be the case, if we do crowd fund I'd rather not have it be for Follica since one we are still very much in the dark about what's going on there, and secondly what Cotsarelis stated regarding the $2 million needed for funding for releasing something soon and it being comparable or better than fin+minox is very odd. If it was better they wouldn't need our money. Something tells me they plan on using the funds we may collect for another possible route for a treatment and just release a product they may already have. Finally Cotsarelis has been claiming a release for many years about a treatment coming in 2 years time but has failed to keep his promise, so who is to say he won't do the same with us?

[Haircure]

Earlier I posted a comment saying lebron signed and endorsement with hair club for men, turns out the news website I got it from was fake. Sorry about that.

[nameless]

What Cotsarelis and the media have stated over the years was that the treatment that was supposed to be released the soonest involved scalp perturbation and then a lotion with FGF9 to induce growth. That is what was supposed to be released,then another study of his was brought to attention regarding PGD2 and it's possible involvement in repressing hair growth. And again like Desmond stated and something that seems very plausible is that whatever studies and tests are done, the reports of those studies/tests are given out in the form of research papers many months later so say 2 years ago he published his article on PGD2 , that would obviously mean he has been working on it much longer before it was published and it's not something he published right after. Also if I'm not mistaken these compounds they may potentially work with have are already known to the FDA through other tests so it might be likely that these will go through trials and be approved much faster.

Although all this may be the case, if we do crowd fund I'd rather not have it be for Follica since one we are still very much in the dark about what's going on there, and secondly what Cotsarelis stated regarding the $2 million needed for funding for releasing something soon and it being comparable or better than fin+minox is very odd. If it was better they wouldn't need our money. Something tells me they plan on using the funds we may collect for another possible route for a treatment and just release a product they may already have. Finally Cotsarelis has been claiming a release for many years about a treatment coming in 2 years time but has failed to keep his promise, so who is to say he won't do the same with us?

1. We have a lot of speculation going on here which is why I said we should *try* to contact him by email (now that Desmond carries Cots's email address) to get the facts as best we can. Will he respond? I don't know but there's no harm in trying to contact him by email.

2. You indicate that Cots referred to a treatment "comparable or better" than minox but it's my understanding that he said the treatment is better than minox but not strong enough to turn a bald man into a NW1. There's a lot of space between those 2 end points. If it would reliably give 50% more hair to a stage 3 or stage 4 we would be foolish to reject the idea of funding it out of hand, without even trying to get more information to clear up the facts.

3. Your stated reason for not wanting to pursue crowdfunding for Follica is that we are still in the dark and this is why I'm suggesting we look over all of the material gathered by Desmond and send Cots and email asking him for some clarification. The most he can do is ignore us and then we would have the option of moving on. But to move on from him now when he has told us that he has a treatment that is better than minox (but not good enough to restore full thickness to a bald man) is a mistake. We should at least try to find out more so that we might no longer be "in the dark."

4. If he tells us the money ($2 million) will go towards a better-than-minoxidil treatment and that the treatment has already cleared phase 2 and only needs a phase 3, but then he spends the money on a different treatment, he would be violating criminal statutes man. It's not going to happen.

5. I don't know why he has not yet gotten investor funding for his quick-release treatment. It just completed phase 2 so for all I know he will be getting funding for that shortly. But maybe investors see that other treatments are going to also be coming within 8 years so they don't want to invest in his quick-release treatment. I don't know. I don't know why and neither does anyone else that posts here. This is why I'm saying we should attempt to contact Cotseralis by email to try to get more information.

6. I will state categorically that if Cots really does have a quick-release treatment that has already completed phase 2 and only needs to do a phase 3, and has proven to be *obviously" better and reliable than minox + finasteride then I will donate $1,000 to the cause of crowdfunding the project as long as he will let us have some details (so we can get out of the dark) and he will release it in one country where it would be legal in exchange for royalties paid to him for each use of the treatment in that one country.

[nameless]

What Cotsarelis and the media have stated over the years was that the treatment that was supposed to be released the soonest involved scalp perturbation and then a lotion with FGF9 to induce growth. That is what was supposed to be released,then another study of his was brought to attention regarding PGD2 and it's possible involvement in repressing hair growth. And again like Desmond stated and something that seems very plausible is that whatever studies and tests are done, the reports of those studies/tests are given out in the form of research papers many months later so say 2 years ago he published his article on PGD2 , that would obviously mean he has been working on it much longer before it was published and it's not something he published right after. Also if I'm not mistaken these compounds they may potentially work with have are already known to the FDA through other tests so it might be likely that these will go through trials and be approved much faster.

Although all this may be the case, if we do crowd fund I'd rather not have it be for Follica since one we are still very much in the dark about what's going on there, and secondly what Cotsarelis stated regarding the $2 million needed for funding for releasing something soon and it being comparable or better than fin+minox is very odd. If it was better they wouldn't need our money. Something tells me they plan on using the funds we may collect for another possible route for a treatment and just release a product they may already have. Finally Cotsarelis has been claiming a release for many years about a treatment coming in 2 years time but has failed to keep his promise, so who is to say he won't do the same with us?

It doesn't matter if these compounds are already known to the FDA because the moment they start mixing these compounds with wounding (if wounding is his quick-release treatment) then the entire treatment becomes new to the FDA and it will all have to go through clinical trials like it's totally new to the FDA. I do not believe the time-frame to completion of phase 2 can be reconciled unless the quick release treatment involves wounding. It could be wounding + FGF9 but I don't think he's had a chance to do PGD2 phase 2 yet. He was running around the globe about 2 years ago looking for approval to study PGD2 drugs from the companies that own the rights to them. I don't think he's had time to complete a phase 2 of a PGD2 treatment yet. I think that if anything it's a wounding treatment involving some chemicals, possibly even FGF9.

[nameless]

hey sascha, what a great find!!! i just read the article (my first language is also german) and i'm impressed. the article indeed says that first tests/trials on human should start in 2014. i wonder if they told that desmond too, or didn't they disclose it. i assume this trials can be seen as phase 0 then. phase 1 could start in 3 or 4 years according to desmond's opinion. not sure why he thinks that. maybe he is right because they still have some work to do. on the other side, if everything goes well with their first tests, maybe an official phase 1 could start sooner. phase 1 is the most critical milestone here.

I don't think that there is a phase zero. I think there's phase 1, phase 2, and phase 3. I think that if they start this year it will probably be phase 1. I also think it would probably be like 1 year rather than 3 or 4 years. At least I hope so.

[NeedHairASAP]

Yea but according to you the cure for hair loss is Pilox and it will be on the market in a few months. LOL!

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...

[joachim]

http://www.biotechnologie.de/BIO/Navigation/DE/Foerderung/foerderbeispiele,did=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.

[joachim]

i forgot to mention: the article also says, patents pending already. but this is probably no surprise. maybe someone of you can check out if the patents can be found online. maybe we can find out more then.

i'm also curious if they would someday let us get some insight in their labs to see their bioreactor life in action. (i mean, it's a university). if desmond keeps a trustful and respectful contact to them, maybe we can get some more insight somewhen.

[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