Q&A with Dr. Aaron Gardner

[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!

[clarence]

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.

Any underlying hurdles with follicle maintentance will be completely eliminated, when we combine these future therapies with a traditional hair transplant. The donor area of a person provides plenty of healthy hairs, which can be traditionally transplanted on the top of a person's head. We will just then use the cloning method to put hair back into the hairless "gaps" in the donor resulting from the transplantation surgery. No need for maintenance after that, right?

[joachim]

Any underlying hurdles with follicle maintentance will be completely eliminated, when we combine these future therapies with a traditional hair transplant. The donor area of a person provides plenty of healthy hairs, which can be traditionally transplanted on the top of a person's head. We will just then use the cloning method to put hair back into the hairless "gaps" in the donor resulting from the transplantation surgery. No need for maintenance after that, right?

great idea

[StinkySmurf]

Cost of Hair Cloning

If you want to speculate about the cost, we have two good data points.

The first FDA approved cell therapy was Carticel, now owned by Genzyme, which repairs knee cartilage. The initial price for the cell culturing was $20,000 plus any markup by the surgeon, with a total cost including the procedure of almost $40,000. It's been on the market for a while so the cell culturing price has come down to $10,000 now.

The most recently approved cell therapy was laViv by Fibrocell Science which removes wrinkles. The cell culturing price is around $2000 with injections costing $700 to $1000 each for a total cost with procedure of between $4000 and $6000, but keep in mind that Fibrocell Science hasn't shown a profit at this price point, and they compete against an entrenched injectable market that most likely lowers the price of laViv.

[hellouser]

If you want to speculate about the cost, we have two good data points.

The first FDA approved cell therapy was Carticel, now owned by Genzyme, which repairs knee cartilage. The initial price for the cell culturing was $20,000 plus any markup by the surgeon, with a total cost including the procedure of almost $40,000. It's been on the market for a while so the cell culturing price has come down to $10,000 now.

The most recently approved cell therapy was laViv by Fibrocell Science which removes wrinkles. The cell culturing price is around $2000 with injections costing $700 to $1000 each for a total cost with procedure of between $4000 and $6000, but keep in mind that Fibrocell Science hasn't shown a profit at this price point, and they compete against an entrenched injectable market that most likely lowers the price of laViv.

Culturing cells from cartilage sounds intense. I'd imagine THAT would be significantly more expensive than pulling out a few follicles.

That Fibrocell price sounds more realistic and definitely at such an affordable price that many, MANY people could take advantage of. Although I'm sure biotechs will try to milk it for much more.

[JZA70]

I didn't read through all twelve pages but did anyone ask our good friend Aaron when this "treatment" could be available to the public ?

[joachim]

I didn't read through all twelve pages but did anyone ask our good friend Aaron when this "treatment" could be available to the public ?

come on, don't be lazy. 12 pages is not that much.
you'll find the answer within these pages.

[JZA70]

Well you guys ask a lot of questions that wont make a difference. Just ask the guy when the treatment will be released and move on.

[agardner]

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?

That is one of the things that we don't know. The clinical trials will provide information on initial success rate and follicle survival over a long period of time in actual patients.

[agardner]

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!

There are numerous reasons, and there will often be numerous causes within a patient. Although not something I would usually recommend the wikipedia page actually covers a broad range of accepted causes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_loss#Causes

There are numerous groups (see the alopecia sessions from the WCHR2014 when the videos are uploaded) working on understanding the underlying issues and these are the groups that will produce a cure that prevents follicle degradation. However, this won't bring back follicles that have already been lost, hence why other groups are looking at generating follicles that can be implanted. Ideally both will go together, restoring follicles and then preventing their loss.

[agardner]

Any underlying hurdles with follicle maintentance will be completely eliminated, when we combine these future therapies with a traditional hair transplant. The donor area of a person provides plenty of healthy hairs, which can be traditionally transplanted on the top of a person's head. We will just then use the cloning method to put hair back into the hairless "gaps" in the donor resulting from the transplantation surgery. No need for maintenance after that, right?

It depends entirely in what form any cure for underlying issues comes in. It could be a single hit fix or at the other end something that requires repeated application. Since this doesn't exist yet we don't really know.

I would envisage that only a few follicles would be isolated as these would be sufficient to generate the required new follicles for the entire scalp, but again we need to wait for data from the clinical trials.