Crowdfunding for Dr. Xu

[sdsurfin]

Ok guys, after talking with one of the top docs in hair research at Penn Medicine, we came to the conclusion that us hair loss sufferers and his team can work together to get funding for them to make a new follicle from stem cells. They need about 4 million dollars that they dont currently have in order to move forward. I am willing to get the kickstarter going and design it and write it, as well as liason with the team at Penn medicine. If anyone has abilities (business/design/spare time) to help with this, it will be needed. the most important thing, which i can't do by myself is spread this to all social networks and market it and promote it in order for it to reach the amount of people it needs to be successful. If anyone is in touch with spencer kobren or other people who have access to advertising etc, please let me know and help out. While the cure for hairloss is slowly being developed, researchers in this country are sadly short on money, but want to get there faster. If things move at the current pace, they have told me that it will at least be more than a decade to ever get a functioning follicle going. I'd love to see lots of responses to this thread, as I think it's pretty special that one of the top researchers is willing to use our help and help us in return. thanks



Here are two emails I received from George Xu. His team was able to make epithelial cells from stem cells this year. I basically asked him what the holdup has been vis a vis making new hair from DP cells.

"Maintaining the folliculogenicity of DP cells may not be as easy as it appears despite several papers in the literature. We are gearing up to make hair follicles composed entirely of human cells from a same person. We all hope the solution to baldness can be sooner. Research funding has been cut in recent years, it would be great if we can get more funding to do some of the research that we would like to do. Thanks"

In response to me saying that he should crowdfund:


"I would love to work with you on this. Could you please let me know your background? You CV would be fine. I will contact our medical school to see whether there is any restriction on these types of effort to raise fund for research and will let you know. I think 4-5 million will make a huge difference in the research. Thanks"


George


Xiaowei Xu, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Pathology and Dermatology

University of Pennsylvania

[HairBane]

Ok guys, after talking with one of the top docs in hair research at Penn Medicine, we came to the conclusion that us hair loss sufferers and his team can work together to get funding for them to make a new follicle from stem cells. They need about 4 million dollars that they dont currently have in order to move forward. I am willing to get the kickstarter going and design it and write it, as well as liason with the team at Penn medicine. If anyone has abilities (business/design/spare time) to help with this, it will be needed. the most important thing, which i can't do by myself is spread this to all social networks and market it and promote it in order for it to reach the amount of people it needs to be successful. If anyone is in touch with spencer kobren or other people who have access to advertising etc, please let me know and help out. While the cure for hairloss is slowly being developed, researchers in this country are sadly short on money, but want to get there faster. If things move at the current pace, they have told me that it will at least be more than a decade to ever get a functioning follicle going. I'd love to see lots of responses to this thread, as I think it's pretty special that one of the top researchers is willing to use our help and help us in return. thanks



Here are two emails I received from George Xu. His team was able to make epithelial cells from stem cells this year. I basically asked him what the holdup has been vis a vis making new hair from DP cells.

"Maintaining the folliculogenicity of DP cells may not be as easy as it appears despite several papers in the literature. We are gearing up to make hair follicles composed entirely of human cells from a same person. We all hope the solution to baldness can be sooner. Research funding has been cut in recent years, it would be great if we can get more funding to do some of the research that we would like to do. Thanks"

In response to me saying that he should crowdfund:


"I would love to work with you on this. Could you please let me know your background? You CV would be fine. I will contact our medical school to see whether there is any restriction on these types of effort to raise fund for research and will let you know. I think 4-5 million will make a huge difference in the research. Thanks"


George


Xiaowei Xu, MD, PhD

Associate Professor of Pathology and Dermatology

University of Pennsylvania

Did he come up with the 4-5 million figure himself?

I know Hellouser can help with design, and I'm sure there are plenty of people in marketing/advertising here too.

[Hicks]

If you start it, others will follow.

[Arashi]

Great initiative. You can put me down for 1000 dollars

[rdawg]

Legitimacy would really have to be proven, but I'm sure many balding sufferers have some money on their hands to give to this if it's for real!

[deuce]

Wouldn't it make more sense to do this with a company like Aderans who was real close to a viable alternative?

[ytterligare]

How much faster would it progress with that 4 million funding? Are we talking about 5 years then? Or even less? Anyway, that's a brilliant idea, but we need LOTS of international attention. I'm thinking of how long it takes Wikipedia to get just a few millions every year.

[sdsurfin]

How much faster would it progress with that 4 million funding? Are we talking about 5 years then?

nobody knows this stuff. you guys have to get deadlines out of your heads and start living your life. It will go faster, that is for sure. If the researchers themselves are hesitant to estimate timelines, how the hell should any of us be able to. the only thing we know for sure is trials take about a decade. so no, not five years probably. first they have to build a cure and then spend a decade getting it passed.

[sdsurfin]

How much faster would it progress with that 4 million funding? Are we talking about 5 years then? Anyway, that's a brilliant idea, but we need LOTS of international attention. I'm thinking of how long it takes Wikipedia to get just a few millions every year.

true, but more people have an urgent anxiety about balding than they do about wikipedia. And agreed, it would need to get widespread international and national attention, which is why i need help to get this out once it's made.

[Thinning87]

Ok so rather than just talking and throwing around questions we can't answer (like "why not Aderans" or "how long") the first action item would be to come up with a set of steps required to launch a crowd funding effort. In other words what needs to be defined in this thread is a PLAN.

I will personally study crowdfunding tomorrow as I have a lot of time. If anyone has any experience in the field they should share insight about how to actually do this.

[Dazza]

For the social stuff:

Set up a twitter account with the kickstarter
Tweet bald celebs with the kickstarter
Tweet day time shows to get the male and females onboard
Tweet news shows

Call Spencer's show and promote it to the shows listeners
Get spencer onboard himself

If the kickstarter looks official and had a video of Dr Xu discussing the protocol I'm sure it will go down much easier.

[PaddyBateman]

For the social stuff:

Set up a twitter account with the kickstarter
Tweet bald celebs with the kickstarter
Tweet day time shows to get the male and females onboard
Tweet news shows

Call Spencer's show and promote it to the shows listeners
Get spencer onboard himself

If the kickstarter looks official and had a video of Dr Xu discussing the protocol I'm sure it will go down much easier.

+1

[CAlex]

Is this the research along the lines of Desmonds"final days" thread?

I am strapped on cash big time but I would be able to initially put in $40. I know it seems like nothing but hopefully others who read this will realize every bit counts and they can throw in all they can afford too.

Every $1 would count.
Theres been so much talk about starting something like this BUT for some reason the time feels right and we should just do this already.

at least make an effort if someone is willing to work with us. This could snow ball and other teams who have stalled due to money issues might come forward with proposals. WE JUST have to have security in place so no one jacks all our money or we dont see what its being used on.

[Dazza]

WE JUST have to have security in place so no one jacks all our money or we dont see what its being used on.

This comes with using kickstarter. If the Dr himself or one of his team sets up this kickstarter it will probably make people more comfortable donating as the Dr will have the funds sent directly to him / the university.

With this project you're not gaining a physical product but rather helping fund trials to speed up the process so its more like a fundraiser. For donation incentives the Dr could put up monthly reports on how the process is going for all the kickstarter backers. Maybe set up a email service so backers can email the team for direct contact? Stuff like that.

With kickstarter If the initial fund target does not get met then everyone is refunded.

Also some info regarding accountability.

https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/accountability-on-kickstarter

[HairBane]

This comes with using kickstarter. If the Dr himself or one of his team sets up this kickstarter it will probably make people more comfortable donating as the Dr will have the funds sent directly to him / the university.

With this project you're not gaining a physical product but rather helping fund trials to speed up the process so its more like a fundraiser. For donation incentives the Dr could put up monthly reports on how the process is going for all the kickstarter backers. Maybe set up a email service so backers can email the team for direct contact? Stuff like that.

With kickstarter If the initial fund target does not get met then everyone is refunded.

Also some info regarding accountability.
https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/acc...on-kickstarter

Yeah we'd have to come up with some decent backer incentives. Perhaps a small amount of the funds could go towards hiring someone to make short films documenting the research efforts, which could be available to backers once every 3-6 months for example.

Having a system for allowing say $1000+ backers to be first in line to receive the treatment when it's ready would be great, because maybe some rich guys who are just starting to thin will invest in this rather than get a $10,000+ hair transplant. But I don't know if that's feasible.

I've said before that this project would be a huge media-darling. I can see it being internationally viral news - "Kickstarter for baldness cure launched".