Q&A with Dr. Aaron Gardner

[agardner]

Mr. Gardner I have a few important ques. #1 Will hair cloning work for someone with a Norwood 6 or 7? And if so, will it restore a full head of head, with a normal hairline as well. #2 If all that worked out, once you are finished with the procedure, you won't have to go back ever again? #3 In the future when you develop gray hair will the cloned hair turn gray as well? #4 Last but not least how much do you think this would cost for a person with a Norwood 6 or 7, BALLPARK/EDUCATED GUESS?? Thank you, Mr. Gardner for you time.

If we make an inductive construct it should work in any instance. But, as I've mentioned previously a balding/bald scalp as underlying issues that mean follicle maintenance will likely be poor. So, co-therapies to prime scalp for treatment and help maintain follicle survival will be required.

It will be interesting to see if restoration of follicles to balding/bald scalp improves the quality of the scalp though.

As for cost I honestly have no idea, an educated guess would be something similar to the current top end hair transplantation clinics. That's a question for when one of the groups gets closer to testing.

[agardner]

Couldn't we just dye the new hair?

I think that if you guys can just figure out how to get us the hair we will just dye it to get color.

Yes, of course. That's why groups are focusing on getting reproducible induction first, other steps like colouration, angle, patterning and surgical delivery will come after that.

[agardner]

So I'll summarise our workings on the DS:

• Freshly isolated DS is as competent as the DP.
• The DS acts as a reservoir for DP cells during the morphological changes of the hair cycle, see:
  http://www.akclinics.com/images/regrowth-cycle.jpg
• In our hands 2D expanded DS do not retain inductivity.
• In our hands 3D culture of DS does not restore inductivity.
• We are attempting to restore inductivity in the DS by increasing expression of DP specific genes in the DS, but have currently not had any success.
• This is designed to help us identify key genes so that we can hopefully in the future use dermal fibroblasts, a much easier to isolated and expand population than DS or DP. See the Rendl labs work, they are attempting to go direct from DF already, very exciting work.

As for Replicel I honestly don't know as I've not seen any data. I know they reported the findings of their clinical trial in Japan but I've not seen the data myself. I would imagine they have the same issues as other and other groups, but, they may be doing something different that has allowed them to get past this. Again, it will be very interesting to see the findings and I think it's a very valid approach as a whole but I don't know the specifics.

[agardner]

Q:
a bit off topic:
Some growth factors are know to be expressed in the hair follicle during Anagen phase mainly afgf, bfgf, kgf, igf-1. when injecting such proteins into the scalp, do you think they will bind to cells and promote anagen and delay catagen thus elongating miniaturized hairs and thicken the entire scalp hair?

There are several problems with injecting growth factors:

• They often have a very short half life, i.e. they degrade very quickly.
• Generation of factors that can be used in the clinic is extremely expensive.
• It is very difficult to target the factors.
• There can, and will be off target effects.

It seems more logical to me to try and induce the scalp/lab grown constructs to secrete these factors itself.

[caddarik79]

Dear Mr Gardner,

I am glad to see that real scientists dedicate their time to answer and put some light on the researches that are going. What a big step, and I agree, with the crowdfunding or the idea to spread and support and accelerate researches, hair loss is really not a minor thing to go trough although I totally am able to relativise and put things on hold.

My questions are :

What would you advise as a "bridging" treatment for now?
Would one or several transplants (or HST or Pilofocus) make the patient non or less eligible for the future cutting edge treatment because of the past intervention on his/her scalp?
Would a procedure make things more difficult, because of hair artificially moved to another place?

I know we are focused on technical sides and talking about what's happening in the labs, but bridging would make the time that separates us from a cure less hurting? and I (on the other hand) don't want to kill my chances for future real cure if transplanting hairs on my scalp the old fashion way, can sabotage the elaboration of a full cure in 5? or 10 years.

Thank you

[Alias123]

Dear Mr Gardner,

I am glad to see that real scientists dedicate their time to answer and put some light on the researches that are going. What a big step, and I agree, with the crowdfunding or the idea to spread and support and accelerate researches, hair loss is really not a minor thing to go trough although I totally am able to relativise and put things on hold.

My questions are :

What would you advise as a "bridging" treatment for now?
Would one or several transplants (or HST or Pilofocus) make the patient non or less eligible for the future cutting edge treatment because of the past intervention on his/her scalp?
Would a procedure make things more difficult, because of hair artificially moved to another place?

I know we are focused on technical sides and talking about what's happening in the labs, but bridging would make the time that separates us from a cure less hurting? and I (on the other hand) don't want to kill my chances for future real cure if transplanting hairs on my scalp the old fashion way, can sabotage the elaboration of a full cure in 5? or 10 years.

Thank you

Exactly the questions i had in mind.

[rdawg]

There are several problems with injecting growth factors:

• They often have a very short half life, i.e. they degrade very quickly.
• Generation of factors that can be used in the clinic is extremely expensive.
• It is very difficult to target the factors.
• There can, and will be off target effects.

It seems more logical to me to try and induce the scalp/lab grown constructs to secrete these factors itself.

Just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to talk to guys like us on the forum!

Sounds like you guys are making progress and are really working hard to get this cured. It also sounds like there is a bit of secrecy amongst different scientists/companies.

Either way I'm glad you came and I hope even more come, opening up and answering our questions personally puts me much more at ease as a sufferer myself, as before it just felt like we were in the dark waiting for little bits of news to be released.

[agardner]

Dear Mr Gardner,

I am glad to see that real scientists dedicate their time to answer and put some light on the researches that are going. What a big step, and I agree, with the crowdfunding or the idea to spread and support and accelerate researches, hair loss is really not a minor thing to go trough although I totally am able to relativise and put things on hold.

My questions are :

What would you advise as a "bridging" treatment for now?
Would one or several transplants (or HST or Pilofocus) make the patient non or less eligible for the future cutting edge treatment because of the past intervention on his/her scalp?
Would a procedure make things more difficult, because of hair artificially moved to another place?

I know we are focused on technical sides and talking about what's happening in the labs, but bridging would make the time that separates us from a cure less hurting? and I (on the other hand) don't want to kill my chances for future real cure if transplanting hairs on my scalp the old fashion way, can sabotage the elaboration of a full cure in 5? or 10 years.

Thank you

I'm sorry but I'm really not qualified to answer those questions. They would be better directed at a clinician who understands the intricacies and outcomes of any intervention

I think I should say that we are not working on a cure. Making new follicles and implanting them does not cure whatever it was that caused the hair loss in the first place. These techniques will hopefully be next step beyond current hair transplant therapies, allowing for greater numbers of constructs to be implanted, and hopefully supporting those for whom transplant operations currently aren't an option.

[artika]

But wouldnt the multiplication, then implantation of let's say, an infinte number of follicles would practically mean a cure ( save for special cases)?
I understand that the follicles will need supportive treatments after implantation, but will these treatments have to be continued throughout one's life?

[amberjack]

mr. Gardner thanks very much for your input...i want to ask the same question like one of other posters...please answer...can you tell us why in the first place aga happens, why pattern, why for someone starts earlier and someone later...why exactly this hair fall today and not hair near that...and why is everybody working on the end of the story (making lab follicles)...why are all teams working on giving signal to cells to make follicles...why cant we make body to give signal to cells to make follicles like in healthy scalp or just to stop attacking follicles...what is problem? sorry for this kind of questions but i think that a lot of people here dont understand science like me and we need this kind of answers...sorry for english its not my native language... thanks again!