Donor Regeneration

[FearTheLoss]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19438685

This is the article Dr. Wesley posted awhile ago, it seems as if pilofocus could easily do this, it would just be about finding the optimal depth to cut the follicle horizontally. If there are indeed stem cells on both halves of the follicle, as supported by this article, then regeneration will occur. If you add acell under the skin to support the growth, I bet a higher percentage of regeneration could occur. I'm very excited to see what becomes of pilofocus.

[FooFighter]

Stem cell therapies evolve last 10 years, but there are so many, many, many puzzles to be solve. We are still on the begining. It will need probably decades to cure some diseases like cancer, heart failure, androgenic alopecia...

[FearTheLoss]

Yes, clearly, but your comment isn't really relevant to this study. They've already proved it works here, it just needs to be fine-tuned.

[FooFighter]

Scientists need to understand how stem cells work, how to multiply and which stem cells are the best to use.

In recent years we have learned a lot as a function, but still have a lot to explore and improved.

Whether it comes to research on cancer, heart failure, hair loss or other things they are related to each other when it comes to stem cell science.

Everything new about how we can improve use of stem cell is benefical for hair loss even if its not related to androgenic alopecia research.

[FearTheLoss]

I personally believe pilofocus can prove to make this science a reality in day to day hair transplants. If each half is growing 70% of the time, when removed and split, then re implanted, I bet leaving one half in its natural habitat and addin a cell could make that 70% move closer to 90%+. So maybe we could be getting a lot better hair transplants that could be considered a surgical cure for some, with fine tuning down the road.

[Swooping]

I personally believe pilofocus can prove to make this science a reality in day to day hair transplants. If each half is growing 70% of the time, when removed and split, then re implanted, I bet leaving one half in its natural habitat and addin a cell could make that 70% move closer to 90%+. So maybe we could be getting a lot better hair transplants that could be considered a surgical cure for some, with fine tuning down the road.

Nice study FearTheLoss, I agree. The artistry of skilled hair surgeons nowadays is so good that only donor limits are the problem. But if we can fix that with doubling that would be damn awesome. I would really like to know if more people actually proceed to further innovate and tweak this treatment. I really bet the HT industry is actually going to provide the first functional cure. Hopefully other people will stand up too and try to innovate in terms of doubling also. The beauty of it too is that you will basically have androgen resistant hairs. The concept is shown, that's very important.

[KO1]

Has the concept really ever been shown? I'm not talking about splitting a DP to make two smaller hairs, I'm talking about splitting it and having it grow back to the same size...without that, it is not doubling.

[Swooping]

Has the concept really ever been shown? I'm not talking about splitting a DP to make two smaller hairs, I'm talking about splitting it and having it grow back to the same size...without that, it is not doubling.

This is what Blake_Boxham had to say from HTN;

He literally cut them in half. The upper portion contained the bulge stem cells in the outer root sheath (ORS) and the lower portion contained the dermal papilla stem cells from the bulb region. This was done under a microscope with a standard scalpel - as far as I understand it.

You are referring to the Italian donor doubling study, right? I think he further proved the theory behind donor dominance: both the bulge stem cells and dermal papilla stem cells are capable of regenerating some type of functioning follicle. Unfortunately, these studies continue to confirm the fact that these bisected follicles grow thinner hairs. The structure of these follicles, and whether or not they can be extracted, split, implanted, and still show growth, remains unknown.

I think donor doubling is going to be my initial research focus when I start my clinical practice a bit down the road!

You are right maybe it's not doubling. But would it really need much more tweaking to get those hair follicles the same size as they were? I'm still kinda amazed that Jahoda induced a whole hair follicle only of his fresh dermal sheath cells. Aaron Gardner mentioned too that the DP and and dermal sheath were both capable of inducing de-novo morphogenesis. I don't know on what he did base that, but still it's realistic to expect that this would be a possibility in the near future imo.

[KO1]

That's the problem though, we have no way of making the DP bigger, AFAIK. If not, we're just left with thinner hairs to spread.

[FearTheLoss]

Well there's a few things that come into play:

These hairs were extracted and then split, anytime a hair is extracted, even the whole follicle, it grows back SLIGHTLY thinner in caliber. With a method like Dr. Wesley's, only the lower portion of the follicle would be removed, and the upper portion would remain in it's original atmosphere. Therefore, we have reason to believe that the chances of it growing back with caliber close to normal could be higher. If you add ACell to this, supporting growth on both ends, which we know it does to some extent (proven by Cooley's work), the chances of 100% caliber regeneration only increase. Also, without handling the graphs and splitting them under a microscope (this doesn't need to be done, because Piloscopy could split them as needed under the skin), there isn't as much damage done to each follicle and each portion of the follicle. This only supports stronger regeneration and regrowth. This, SCIENCE, is why I have high hopes for Pilofocus and what it could do for anyone suffering from hair loss. I think Dr. Wesley is an absolute genius and we really need more proactive doctors like him.

[KO1]

Well, I hope you are right. That said, pre-Pilofocus, why aren't doctors doing this more often? I know Cole uses a partial extraction protocol, but shouldn't that mean that even NW7's should be getting interesting results? I have been hearing about donor regeneration/Acell for years but haven't really seen any "wow" results.

[Swooping]

Well there's a few things that come into play:

These hairs were extracted and then split, anytime a hair is extracted, even the whole follicle, it grows back SLIGHTLY thinner in caliber. With a method like Dr. Wesley's, only the lower portion of the follicle would be removed, and the upper portion would remain in it's original atmosphere. Therefore, we have reason to believe that the chances of it growing back with caliber close to normal could be higher. If you add ACell to this, supporting growth on both ends, which we know it does to some extent (proven by Cooley's work), the chances of 100% caliber regeneration only increase. Also, without handling the graphs and splitting them under a microscope (this doesn't need to be done, because Piloscopy could split them as needed under the skin), there isn't as much damage done to each follicle and each portion of the follicle. This only supports stronger regeneration and regrowth. This, SCIENCE, is why I have high hopes for Pilofocus and what it could do for anyone suffering from hair loss. I think Dr. Wesley is an absolute genius and we really need more proactive doctors like him.

Interesting. What I was thinking though, how about the time involved? Thing is if you go splitting under a microscope hair follicle by hair follicle, I would imagine that it would be extremely time invasive. Do you have any idea of the time involved in Pilofocus in comparison with normal FUE?

Regeneration can be a real solution, even on short term imo. The broad concept is there already indeed, it just needs tweaking and more "stability".

[FearTheLoss]

Interesting. What I was thinking though, how about the time involved? Thing is if you go splitting under a microscope hair follicle by hair follicle, I would imagine that it would be extremely time invasive. Do you have any idea of the time involved in Pilofocus in comparison with normal FUE?

Regeneration can be a real solution, even on short term imo. The broad concept is there already indeed, it just needs tweaking and more "stability".

In the last presentation that Dr. Wesley's assistant uploaded, it stated pilofocus could do 1000+ grafts an hour while regular fue can only do 300-400max

[KO1]

Has Cooley produced any "wow" results from doubling?

[FearTheLoss]

No, he doesn't do it in practice I believe. He's just been studying it and trying to perfect it. The problem is I don't believe it's perfectable with modern fue techniques. Doctor Cole said the problem he has with regeneration becoming consistent is the ACell leaks and doesn't stay where it needs to be. Hence, this problem could be solved with pilofocus as ACell could be placed under the skin where it couldn't leak.