Will an official cure ever be found? Honestly

[jamesst11]

and then one day, Bosley will have hair transplant kiosks located inside every walmart. haha

[FooFighter]

My dream is one day, everything will be SO advanced through robotics and hair restoration will be extremely specific. As in, you can determine the EXACT number of donor available for use and through a computer program "design" the exact density, placement and pattern of hair. Once inputted, the robot does EVERYTHING - extract donor follicles with exact precision, create recipient sites at EXACT angles with the correct density for all areas of scalp and places them as WELL.. all done with such precision that graft survival and transection is NOT even an issue...Also, less technicians, after getting the robots and software then less overhead, less guess work... that's my dream! Who thinks something like this could ever be possible?

It is very possible, but in the next 15-20 years.

[jamesst11]

It is very possible, but in the next 15-20 years.

Why 15-20 years? I think much much sooner than that. Technology advances a lot quicker than science and they really already have the technology to do something like this. They already have the robots extracting AND creating recipient sites.

[Occulus]

Why 15-20 years? I think much much sooner than that. Technology advances a lot quicker than science and they really already have the technology to do something like this. They already have the robots extracting AND creating recipient sites.

Parts of what you described is already available through the ARTAS system. They already use it to design placement, as you explained it. The technology for what you described also exists today, it's just too expensive to be commercially successful. It will be affordable in five years. When robots can do the whole procedure, the cost of transplants will drop tenfold.

[BoSox]

It is very possible, but in the next 15-20 years.

15 to 20 years? Have you been living under a rock in the last few years? They are closer.

[dutchguyhanging]

15 to 20 years? Have you been living under a rock in the last few years? They are closer.

ok guys one thing i need to make clearer for everyone here since i am working in one of the big pharma.. a lot money goes into R&D thats true. but there used to be more freedom on how researcher spent their money.. not anymore.. we are all focusing on treatments which could be viable within 2-3years timeframe....

i would all like to remind yo all how stemcell research market has been collapsed during last decade and there was literally no investment at that time. and now it is coming back again.. if investors dont see payoff it will collapse again..

u remember when we did dolly- it was 96... 20 years ago.. they cloned a ship 20years ago and we can not clone one single hair? yes thats sad but true..

in short never ever ever ever give timeline.. it could be tomorrow it could be 50years from now... hairloss is also related with ageing process so not easy equation to solve...

[burtandernie]

How do you know hair loss is related to the aging process? Why do a lot of women at older ages not also lose hair then because aging is not a gender specific issue is it?

[Trouse5858]

How do you know hair loss is related to the aging process? Why do a lot of women at older ages not also lose hair then because aging is not a gender specific issue is it?

There's a statistically linear correlation between age and male pattern baldness. The current estimates are that 20 percent of men in their twenties are balding, thirty percent of men in their thirties and so on and so fourth. So while it's true that there are outliers- slick bald teenagers and 70 year olds with full heads of hair- those scenarios aren't the norm.

[Occulus]

There's a statistically linear correlation between age and male pattern baldness. The current estimates are that 20 percent of men in their twenties are balding, thirty percent of men in their thirties and so on and so fourth. So while it's true that there are outliers- slick bald teenagers and 70 year olds with full heads of hair- those scenarios aren't the norm.

It is related to aging in the sense that it begins more or less at puberty. How it progresses is variable from person to person. But it is not a result of the universal, systemic decline that follows the age of 25 (for most people). If there is any correlation to age (I've never heard your 20%/20's, 30%/30's timeline before), it is only because the process is different from person to person, genetics depending; for some it progresses so rapidly that it is cosmetically noticeable by their 20's, for others by their 30's, etc.

I firmly believe that it is an autoimmune disorder, and that the JAK studies will bear fruit. That being said, there are several promising protocols in the pipeline, and if one of them hits, it will be in less than ten years, as all of them are in Phase I trials or later. If none of them work, then yes, the timeline gets significantly longer.

[jamesst11]

How do you know hair loss is related to the aging process? Why do a lot of women at older ages not also lose hair then because aging is not a gender specific issue is it?

Someone posted something on another thread that was a perfect example of how MPB effects people differently - Look at clint eastwood. He's maintained had the same receding hairline for like 30 years. While, I have lost 60% of my hair in 1.5 years. I don't think you can look at the pattern as strictly linear. Some that start losing very young seem to almost always be destined to bald quickly. People that lose more slowly have very unique patterns of when and how they lose their hair. I know one thing, trauma definitely speeds up the process. This I can relate to.

[burtandernie]

There's a statistically linear correlation between age and male pattern baldness. The current estimates are that 20 percent of men in their twenties are balding, thirty percent of men in their thirties and so on and so fourth. So while it's true that there are outliers- slick bald teenagers and 70 year olds with full heads of hair- those scenarios aren't the norm.

That is true, but I guess what I am saying is hair loss really tied to aging or is tied to androgen levels that change naturally as men get older which causes the MPB? Do receptors change as you age or the counts/density of receptors as you age and that causes it verses age directly causes MPB itself? That is not really aging to me because aging to me effects every single person man/woman or anyone pretty much equally. There is not a guy that is 200 years old walking around that aging somehow missed.
Maybe I just think about the word aging a little differently than most people seem to use it.

[dutchguyhanging]

That is true, but I guess what I am saying is hair loss really tied to aging or is tied to androgen levels that change naturally as men get older which causes the MPB? Do receptors change as you age or the counts/density of receptors as you age and that causes it verses age directly causes MPB itself? That is not really aging to me because aging to me effects every single person man/woman or anyone pretty much equally. There is not a guy that is 200 years old walking around that aging somehow missed.
Maybe I just think about the word aging a little differently than most people seem to use it.

this is exactly why it took more than 2016 years to find the cure... can you tell me what is the probably cause of death for one ? it could be various things right? so is MPB itself...
that being said, I believe there is HUGE market potential ready to exploit... even more than cancer treatments... if u make everyone NW0 without any side effects, i believe everyone will use this treatment..

[Ktownmatti]

Look at the advances and explosion currently taking place in regenerative medicine and technology as a whole. Remember technology growth is exponential - not linear. It is absolute lunacy to believe there WON'T be something close to resembling "a cure" in the next 10 years.

[Ktownmatti]

10 years from now you will probably be able to get an entire body transplant FFS.

[Occulus]

Look at the advances and explosion currently taking place in regenerative medicine and technology as a whole. Remember technology growth is exponential - not linear. It is absolute lunacy to believe there WON'T be something close to resembling "a cure" in the next 10 years.

Biotech is not like IT tech - there is no "work-around" for trials. If a new piece of software doesn't work, take it offline and fix it. If a new piece of biotech doesn't work, people can suffer or even die. That's why growth in biotech is not "exponential" - you will always have to trial a new protocol, and that takes - at a minimum - 12 years. Even if you develop something in a country with fewer regulations, it's still going to take years and years to bring a new therapy to market. And unlike tech, you don't really "build on failures" like you do in IT - there are often few lessons to learn from a failed study other than the original hypothesis was wrong.

Will the time to market ever get compressed? Sure, when new approaches to testing are developed (for example, chips that can simulate biology, or even digital biological simulations), but those are not going to happen in the near term. For those of us alive right now, biotech development will always be a long, expensive, and laborious process.