WCHR 2014 Presentations (Community-funded)

[hellouser]

New video:

Dr Claire Higgins: Reprogramming Human DP Cells by Spheroid Culture Restores Hair Inductivity



From her presentation she showed this, a microscopic image of scalp skin:



Does anyone know how thick the epidermis, dermis and the dermal adipose tissue layers are for BALDING scalps? Is the dermal adipose tissue thinner in balding scalp? I ask in regards to fat grafting and similarly to what swooping is looking into with adipose derived cell injections.

[walrus]

just seems like a commercial for his employer to me... every comment in every thread is an opportunity to talk about Dr. Cole

Agreed. Always trying to link ACell to areas it is not relevant with far out theories lacking evidence.

[imme]

Almost all these future products would be QUITE expensive. People went lucky wih Proscar because Propecia was REALLY expensive at first (10-13 years) and sill is expensive. So, even when some of these new products hit the market, a lot of people will keep taking finasteride/minoxidil.

The hair follicles grown in lab and implanted on the scalp or even injections for "sleeping" follicles to "wake up" will cost a lot of money, probably like today's HTs.

Maye in 40 years or so things will be different and body modifications will be cheap.

[35YrsAfter]

Agreed. Always trying to link ACell to areas it is not relevant with far out theories lacking evidence.

ACell is a regenerative product that may have some new competition from AmnioFix. A slide from Claire Higgins video presentation above, represents a topic of her discussion:

"Potential use of papilla cells in regenerative medicine.

Hair follicle regeneration
Treatment of androgenic alopecia
Establishment of follicles in skin grafts
Making a functional skin"

How is a product cleared by the FDA for sale as a regenerative medicine "ACell" not relevant?

Do you believe that the field of regenerative medicine is nothing more than a "far out theory"?

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]

ACell is a regenerative product that may have some new competition from AmnioFix. A slide from Claire Higgins video presentation above, represents a topic of her discussion:

"Potential use of papilla cells in regenerative medicine.

Hair follicle regeneration
Treatment of androgenic alopecia
Establishment of follicles in skin grafts
Making a functional skin"

How is a product cleared by the FDA for sale as a regenerative medicine "ACell" not relevant?

Do you believe that the field of regenerative medicine is nothing more than a "far out theory"?

And thats the problem right there. 'Potential'. This sensationalist reporting is getting tiresome.

[35YrsAfter]

And thats the problem right there. 'Potential'. This sensationalist reporting is getting tiresome.

So the studies and research covered in this thread aren't about potential? What are they about then?

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

[Thinning87]

So the studies and research covered in this thread aren't about potential? What are they about then?

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

Acell is not what we're talking about here, stop playing coy, you know that very well. If you were only mentioning Acell and Dr. Cole every once in a while we might even give you credit, but every thread and topic here is a chance for you to create some kind of tangent and talk about your office. I don't think it really works for you.

[joachim]

New video:

Dr Claire Higgins: Reprogramming Human DP Cells by Spheroid Culture Restores Hair Inductivity



From her presentation she showed this, a microscopic image of scalp skin:



Does anyone know how thick the epidermis, dermis and the dermal adipose tissue layers are for BALDING scalps? Is the dermal adipose tissue thinner in balding scalp? I ask in regards to fat grafting and similarly to what swooping is looking into with adipose derived cell injections.

the video shows once more that DP spheroids alone are capable of inducing de novo hair follicle formation. the contact to the surrounding cells is established, if everything goes well, somehow automatically, and nerves, sebaceuos gland etc. is formed as well. but the problem is that the cells have not retained their full inductivity and gene expression, therefore the results are very limited so far. so with different tricks the researchers are trying to enhance this, e.g. by coating with epithelial cells like Dr. Gardner said.

if the DP cells would have their full inductive capability and gene expression within this spheroid, it wouldn't be necessary to do those culturing tricks, right? so a perfect DP spheroid (without coating with other cells) alone would induce a new follicle... in most cases at least. or let's be pessimistic instead and say only 1 of 5 from such perfect DP spheroids would form a follicle.

so am i the only one who thinks that an unlimited amount of perfect DP cells (full inductivity and full gene expression) is THE cure? even if only 1 of 5 spheroids induces a new follicle you could repeat the treatment anytime.

why do i summarize it this way?
we already know that isolated and expanded cells in a dish lose all those required properties.
but we also know that there's another way to create brand new DP cells (hopefully fully inductive and full gene expression). i'm talking about creating DP cells from iPS cells (pluripotent stemcells), which is actually the approach from Dr. Xu.
if he manages to create those cells, then we have an unlimited amount of DP cells.
in theory, this freshly converted cells should be fully inductive and have 100% gene expression, because this conversion is the natural way how human body's form out of an embryo. that's the reason why all this regenerative stem cell science is fascinating the whole world. it's the key to so many biological problems and diseases.

so i just realized today that the iPS cell approach is probably a big deal.
and also i think that this way (letting DP spheroids induce complete follicles from scratch) will result in relative natural growth angles. i just can't imagine that the angles will be completely different, so that it's cosmetically total bullshit. i assume there is something that guides the angle of the induced hair (let it be the skin structure, or the structure of the nerves, or whatever).

what do you think, guys? (desmond, am i right with my conclusion?)

[hellouser]

if the DP cells would have their full inductive capability and gene expression within this spheroid, it wouldn't be necessary to do those culturing tricks, right? so a perfect DP spheroid (without coating with other cells) alone would induce a new follicle... in most cases at least. or let's be pessimistic instead and say only 1 of 5 from such perfect DP spheroids would form a follicle.

so am i the only one who thinks that an unlimited amount of perfect DP cells (full inductivity and full gene expression) is THE cure? even if only 1 of 5 spheroids induces a new follicle you could repeat the treatment anytime.

Screw that. Just culure and inject MORE DP cells to make up for the lost ones. Case closed, cure found.

Why the hell are we still on this forum and not conducting trials?

[fuzzyballs]

Screw that. Just culure and inject MORE DP cells to make up for the lost ones. Case closed, cure found.

Why the hell are we still on this forum and not conducting trials?

Not conducting trials... in Asia

[joachim]

Screw that. Just culure and inject MORE DP cells to make up for the lost ones. Case closed, cure found.

Why the hell are we still on this forum and not conducting trials?

lol.

does that mean you agree with the idea that unlimited available DP cells derived from iPS cells are a big deal?

and arashi, what do you think about it?

i'm actually thinking that funding this approach could indeed be the cure, much sooner than the other approaches from lauster and co.
but i didn't realize that before yesterday, because i always thought, once Dr Xu comes out with unlimited DP cells, he still has to do all the difficult 3D culturing tricks like the other researchers are doing. but that's not the case as a simple fresh DP spheroid ball alone induces de novo follicles from scratch (including seb. gland). it forces the skin cells to turn into all the required cells like dermal sheath, extracellular matrix etc., like i said, a follicle is formed from scratch.

so imagine the following scenario: Dr. Xu finds a way to convert unlimited iPS cells to DP cells (fully inductive and 100% gene expression). this can happen within let's say 3 years but also sooner if there is enough manpower and funding to try different protocols simultaenously (like i said: basically it's a trial and error game)
however, if he figures out the right steps the method how to do it has to be made public in a scientific paper, i guess. the DP spheroids without special coating tricks etc. are easy to create then (even nigam can do it). if that is the case, DP spheroid injection can take place in unregulated countries a.s.a.p. and the only task is to create this little DP balls and inject them into the scalp. angling of course has to be solved if it turns out to be a problem, but at least there is a possibility to do it with a nylon guide like arashi mentioned in other threads.

so am i crazy or what? unlimited DP cells is the next big thing. it's a completely different approach compared to what team lauster is doing. i even have more hope in that method, because i don't think researchers will ever be able to restore 100% gene expression. like Dr. Gardner said, it's maybe not necessary to achieve 100%, but what if it turns out that he waa wrong? the taiwanese studies are the first which will show if this works or not. their results will probably see the daylight not before 2016/2017.

[joachim]

just another thought, too:
what would happen if you extract a graft (in an FUE session), and fill the hole with a DP spheroid? would there be a greater chance of donor regeneration (even with spheroids of only 40% gene expression)? if i'm not wrong here, this isn't exactly what nigam tried. he only tried to inject 2d cells for regeneration, and some 3d spheroids into the bald recipient site.

but did anyone ever try to repair an FUE extraction hole with a DP spheroid? in theory i see a goog chance here for some regeneration... at least better as with acell or pilofocus

[hellouser]

the taiwanese studies are the first which will show if this works or not. their results will probably see the daylight not before 2016/2017.

??

So, we'll know if it works after 2016/2017?

[hellouser]

just another thought, too:
what would happen if you extract a graft (in an FUE session), and fill the hole with a DP spheroid? would there be a greater chance of donor regeneration (even with spheroids of only 40% gene expression)? if i'm not wrong here, this isn't exactly what nigam tried. he only tried to inject 2d cells for regeneration, and some 3d spheroids into the bald recipient site.

but did anyone ever try to repair an FUE extraction hole with a DP spheroid? in theory i see a goog chance here for some regeneration... at least better as with acell or pilofocus

Oh damn... considering Replicel's stem cell method is the closest of any for release, I wonder if this would work. A ridiculously simple approach too.

[35YrsAfter]

Acell is not what we're talking about here, stop playing coy, you know that very well. If you were only mentioning Acell and Dr. Cole every once in a while we might even give you credit, but every thread and topic here is a chance for you to create some kind of tangent and talk about your office. I don't think it really works for you.

Forums create the illusion of a very small audience. There are far more people who only read threads in the Bald Truth Forum than there are who both read and post comments. My doctor's rep signature contains my email address and phone number. I receive a steady flow of emails and calls from forum visitors (seldom posters) interested in information about currently available treatments and regenerative products. The current research is very interesting and will hopefully be useful down the road, but many men I hear from aren't hanging their hopes on it. They want to know what can be done now with currently available treatments. I believe current research can be incorporated into existing treatments making them more effective. Every week we have a number of minimal depth donor extraction sites that in my opinion, provide one of the best environments for regenerative advances. People often focus down a narrow path even when multiple viable options are available for improving the state of hair loss prevention and hair restoration.

When I have time I ask patients about their hair care regimen. Whether they use Rogaine, Propecia, Avodart etc. I also ask whether they visit the hair loss forums. If they do, I ask which ones and if they post. Approximately 90% tell me they have either visited forums at one time or regularly visit hair loss forums. A few of our patients post. The number one reason I commonly hear patients explain why they don't post, relates to the time and energy wasted on pissing matches. Pissing matches do a disservice to the forum as well as hair loss sufferers.

As I mentioned, many men are tired of being bald and want to know what can be done for them now. So if what I post disturbs you, don't read my posts.

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