Derivation of Hair-Inducing Cell from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

[Hairismylife]

Can someone send this news to whatever company that can start trial in Japan? Maybe even Aderans and Follica, they are idle now.

[Arashi]

if someone takes this discovery serious it can be tested and offered much sooner in japan. who cares about FDA and other organizations anymore?

Although this is another nice development, they didnt grow any hair that pierced the skin. And that's what matters to us: it's all about growing hair that's cosmetically viable. This was merely to prove that they could grow hair follicles, on mice, albeit using human cells. And not even IPC cells but human embryo cells. Very interesting research but far from being tested on humans.

[hellouser]

Can someone send this news to whatever company that can start trial in Japan? Maybe even Aderans and Follica, they are idle now.

LOL @ Aderans.

[hellouser]

Although this is another nice development, they didnt grow any hair that pierced the skin. It's all about growing hair that's cosmetically viable. This was merely to prove that they could grow hair follicles, on mice, albeit using human cells. Very interesting research but far from being tested on humans.

Why? Why is it far? What's holding anyone back from doing a simple case study? Why does this have to get tossed aside so quickly?

[bboy5]

Although this is another nice development, they didnt grow any hair that pierced the skin. And that's what matters to us: it's all about growing hair that's cosmetically viable. This was merely to prove that they could grow hair follicles, on mice, albeit using human cells. And not even IPC cells but human embryo cells. Very interesting research but far from being tested on humans.

Why do you say it's far? We've already seen studies using DP cells on Human skin grafted on the back of mice. There's been an escalating stream of studies exploring different approaches to this for the past two or three years. The limiting factor in all of these was the induction problem. Now it looks like we have a viable solution for that problem. Moving to some form of Human study seems like the next obvious and logical step. Are you just being guardedly pessimistic or are you aware of further technical hurdles that are yet to be overcome?

[joachim]

Although this is another nice development, they didnt grow any hair that pierced the skin. And that's what matters to us: it's all about growing hair that's cosmetically viable. This was merely to prove that they could grow hair follicles, on mice, albeit using human cells. And not even IPC cells but human embryo cells. Very interesting research but far from being tested on humans.

yes i noticed that too, that the follicles didn't pierce the skin. i assume it's about how many DP cells you use to create one papilla cluster. some researchers already said that hair shaft diameter is directly related to the amount of DP cells. if more DP cells are used the hair will be much stronger to pierce the skin. also the growth direction is an issue which can be seen from the pictures in the study. but as you know, tsuji has figured out a solution for that with nylon threads. but even if growth direction wouldn't be perfect many of us wouldn't care. when the hair is grown out it can be well combed and styled.

also, if i read the stud correctly, they have used iPS cells as comparison to embryonic cells. not sure what you were referring to. despite less efficacy they suggest the iPS cells as possible route.

[hellouser]

some researchers already said that hair shaft diameter is directly related to the amount of DP cells. if more DP cells are used the hair will be much stronger to pierce the skin.

Yep, this is explained by Dr. Claire Higgins (one of Dr. Colin Jahoda's students) in this video:

[/QUOTE]

[sdsurfin]

Why do you say it's far? We've already seen studies using DP cells on Human skin grafted on the back of mice. There's been an escalating stream of studies exploring different approaches to this for the past two or three years. The limiting factor in all of these was the induction problem. Now it looks like we have a viable solution for that problem. Moving to some form of Human study seems like the next obvious and logical step. Are you just being guardedly pessimistic or are you aware of further technical hurdles that are yet to be overcome?

It's far because any viable idea takes about a decade to be worked through trials. Add to that the fact that these are not workable protocols yet. Creating a little mass of pro to-hairs in a mouse skin is NOT the same as knowing how to precisely induce thousands of well placed and cosmetic follicles in a human. Dr. Xu mentioned that creating DP cells from scratch would be a good step, and I think a lot of teams will be able to do this in the next couple of years. However, he also said it would probably take another decade to create a functioning, cycling, cosmetically correct follicle. Even if you get optimistic and cut that down to five years or so, you're looking at 15 or so with testing included. And thats still optimistic. Look at replicel, they have been around forever, and what they are doing is much easier.

[Thinning87]

Sorry to put out the negative comment out here, but I actually know two of the authors of this study. As a matter of fact, one of them is my roommate. I asked them about this, they didn't even know the article would be published. They did this research years ago and everyone in the team has moved on to doing other research. According to them, the methods used to obtain the study's result are not applicable to humans.

[bboy5]

It's far because any viable idea takes about a decade to be worked through trials. Add to that the fact that these are not workable protocols yet. Creating a little mass of pro to-hairs in a mouse skin is NOT the same as knowing how to precisely induce thousands of well placed and cosmetic follicles in a human. Dr. Xu mentioned that creating DP cells from scratch would be a good step, and I think a lot of teams will be able to do this in the next couple of years. However, he also said it would probably take another decade to create a functioning, cycling, cosmetically correct follicle. Even if you get optimistic and cut that down to five years or so, you're looking at 15 or so with testing included. And thats still optimistic. Look at replicel, they have been around forever, and what they are doing is much easier.

I do appreciate that, but Arashi said it was far from being tested in humans, you're talking about a fully realised commercial product. I was more inquiring as to what technical problems are left that prevent us from taking this to human testing.