WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[Arashi]

Thanks for posting Desmond, cant wait to see the next !

[joachim]

interesting... i didn't know that cots has hairloss too, at the vertex.
from the standard interviews with him it's never visible.

if he was losing hair faster he probably would have the cure already =)

[breakbot]

Did you notice that Cotsarelis is an mpb sufferer too?
Lol, if he discoreved somekind of cure wouldn't he tried himshelf?

[joachim]

but seriously, about the PGD2 talk: did nobody of the researchers ever had the idea to compare bald with non-balding scalp to find out where the differences could be?
why do they come up with such "simple" comparisons in 2014? isn't the technology for dissecting scalp and comparing different cells and markers available for at least 3 decades? this seems a bit amateurish to me. and now, another decade to release the PGD2 inhibitor.

[Thinning87]

My hope is really that he was trolling, and is up to something more than this... I mean the stuff he presented is basically old a couple years at least, and no mention about FGF9 and wounding... and then what he told Desmond... either they're up to something he doesn't want to talk about, or pretty much things are at a halt.

[kobefan234]

My hope is really that he was trolling, and is up to something more than this... I mean the stuff he presented is basically old a couple years at least, and no mention about FGF9 and wounding... and then what he told Desmond... either they're up to something he doesn't want to talk about, or pretty much things are at a halt.

The Latter

[hellouser]

My hope is really that he was trolling, and is up to something more than this... I mean the stuff he presented is basically old a couple years at least, and no mention about FGF9 and wounding... and then what he told Desmond... either they're up to something he doesn't want to talk about, or pretty much things are at a halt.

Here's my take (I've posted it before)

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 give 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.

[Desmond84]

Hi guys,

Dr Aaron Gardner's 3D modelling presentation should become available once it finishes uploading in the next 8 hours or so. Already working on the next presentation.

I've been getting a lot of emails about the speed at which I am uploading. Guys believe me when I say it is a lot more work than it looks...lol

Just editing one presentation, syncing in the sound from the voice recorder, encoding and uploading takes well over 20 hours. I am spending all of my free time working on these presentations so please be patient. I'm sure our graphic designers can sympathise

Also, sorry if I'm not discussing much about the presentations themselves. I'm so occupied with the whole editing process I barely get a chance to break it down in layman terms for everyone. I'm just trying to get the information out and then we can spend the next few months discussing the actual presentations.

Please be patient...I'll be uploading a presentation by a Japanese team tomorrow who were inspired by astronauts and gravity to generate hair follicles. That's a really awesome one to watch. I'll be working on that tonight after work.

We have enough info from this congress to occupy everyones time till the end of summer lol

[Arashi]

Thanks Desmond, for all the time you've put and are putting into this. Very much appreciated !!

[Arashi]

Posted in another thread but very ontopic here:

Hopefully his team will contribute to a better treatment, but who knows if any of that pgd2 stuff will be of any use. Just because one gene is elevated in the scalp and inhibits growth doesnt mean that blocking it will stop hair loss. It's probably just one of many chemical pathways that play a part.

These were EXACTLY my thoughts after viewing his presentation. It's interesting to research it and in theory might indeed be key but it seems quite a bit of a long shot.

[Thinning87]

This is perfectly fine Desmond

[Desmond84]

Hi guys,

Here's Dr Aaron Gardner's presentation as promised. Enjoy

P.S. its my pleasure to be part of this inspiring project Arashi


Dr Aaron Gardner: Dermal-Epidermal Interactions in 3D Culture Restore Markers of DP Inductivity


Background: Human Dermal Papilla (DP) rapidly lose their inductive capability in culture. Recent work has demonstrated that forming DP in 3D spheroids, partially restores their native gene-expression profile and inductive abilities. However, fully functional papilla almost certainly require further epithelial interaction/signalling.

Objectives: We hypothesised that further restoration of in vivo DP character either through genetic or environmental manipulation would restore hair follicle inductivity.

Methods: Adult human dermal sheath (DS), dermal fibroblasts (DF) and DP cells were cultured as hanging drops. After formation, spheroid cultures were coated with adult human keratinocytes. Interactions between the two populations were assessed via immunofluorescence and electron microscopy. Inductivity potential was assessed by implanting spheres into adult fibrin-gel dermal models or adult human skin biopsies and observing early morphological changes.

Results: Keratinocytes coated onto follicular dermal cell spheres developed a stratified epithelium with Keratin-14 expressed throughout and Keratin-10 only present supra-basally, there was also evidence of proto-basement memberane formation detected by pan-laminin. Coated spheres also displayed elevated Lef1 expression, implicated in hair follicle induction, as well as periostin and SPARC, implicated in epithelial remodelling and support, at the interface between the two populations compared to controls.
When implanted into fibrin gels, DS & DP but not DF spheroids induced down-growth of epithelium reminiscent of early follicle development. When implanted into adult human skin on athymic mice, coated DS and DP but not DF nor any uncoated spheres induced epithelial down-growth.

Conclusion: Coating follicular dermal cells with Keratinocytes results in the development of stratified but not fully mature epithelium, and also induces the expression of potential markers of inductivity. Moreover, coated follicular dermal cells were able to induce epithelial down-growth in adult human tissue. Further work is aimed at a better understanding of the epithelial mesenchymal interactions underpinning inductivity, and towards consistent human follicle neogenesis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-u_L3ohE68

[Le Bald]

Could you dumb this down for us non science people? How close is this getting us to a treatment? Or is it a small step in the notch of evidence to get a solution for more effective treatment?

[Artista]

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)

[Desmond84]

Could you dumb this down for us non science people? How close is this getting us to a treatment? Or is it a small step in the notch of evidence to get a solution for more effective treatment?

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.