Dr Lauster's Team (Berlin University of Technology)

[Desmond84]

Thanks Desmond, that was a well written, well thought out, and informative post. Also thanks for your hard work. Either way we all live in an era where medical progress is probably going to help every one of us in some way, whether it is hair related or not. I'm happy to know that if I have a son, he won't have many worries as far as hair nonsense is concerned, and I think there are much bigger things to worry about, like the state of the world and the environment in general.

I am really curious to know whether the hair seeds that they have already made would grow into hair on someone's head as they are, but I guess the want to get them even more perfected before they try that. It's curious to think what exactly is holding the seeds back from becoming full hairs. I wrote an email to Gardner a few months ago where I asked him why they aren't growing DP cells in tiny chambers coated with epithelial cells, and then watched that Beren Atac video to see that she is doing precisely that Made me smile.

Yeah...I can't believe either the luck we have! Out of all the cell lines, DP cells are the most difficult ones to culture. At least each team is taking a different approach, we'll see who is right soon enough co-culturing endothelial cells vs. specific growth factors!

Btw, how awesome are the german team...they're doing everything right so far...I had a smile on my face watching the presentation as well

hey desmond,

you mentioned that their bioengineered follicles are currently not terminal yet, only vellus-like hairs. so i assume they never tried to implant those follicles into human scalp yet, what do you think?

but what if this micro follicle is already enough to trigger further mechanisms after implantation? what if the follicle starts to grow, or if it triggers the surrounding cells to strengthen the follicle? did they ever tested it to see the outcome? or do they need official trials for that, which is not going to happen before they create terminal hairs.

implanting those vellus-like hair would also show some other aspects, e.g. does the hair stay in vellus condition or does it fall out immediately? or what happens to that implanted follicle in general? see some reactions etc. would be interesting. it's completely different than playing the in-vitro game only...

hahahha, oh if only we could have some guinea pigs to test that! wouldn't that be wonderful! LOL

I personally think it's worth a shot...you can even use Histogens HSC on them afterwards. We know HSC is capable of turning vellus hairs to terminal. But I guess they don;t wanna rush it and instead have a solid product especially if the vellus hairs were incapable of turning terminal! imagine the millions of dollars that would have been wasted on human trials! We'd have another Aderans on our hands

[joachim]

Yeah...I can't believe either the luck we have! Out of all the cell lines, DP cells are the most difficult ones to culture. At least each team is taking a different approach, we'll see who is right soon enough co-culturing endothelial cells vs. specific growth factors!

Btw, how awesome are the german team...they're doing everything right so far...I had a smile on my face watching the presentation as well




hahahha, oh if only we could have some guinea pigs to test that! wouldn't that be wonderful! LOL

I personally think it's worth a shot...you can even use Histogens HSC on them afterwards. We know HSC is capable of turning vellus hairs to terminal. But I guess they don;t wanna rush it and instead have a solid product especially if the vellus hairs were incapable of turning terminal! imagine the millions of dollars that would have been wasted on human trials! We'd have another Aderans on our hands

i wonder if they test some of those created follicles internally on the staff themselves, or would that be illegal already? of course, it shouldn't be a huge trial to test that, only a handful volunteers to see what the implanted follicles do.

however, even if they manage to create terminal hairs in vitro there is no guarantee that those will grow in the scalp. would be interesting to hear from them what they think about the sebaceus gland dilemma? do they also hope that the implanted follicle triggers some neogenesis and that the seb. gland is formed naturally?

man, what if those terminal hairs don't work at all when they implant them? so many untested and unknown scenarios. they really should get some guinea pigs for some first tests...

[sascha]

Hi Desmond. Thank you so much for doing this, especially so professionally.
I have a question for you or every other member that would be kind enough to answer it, if you don´t mind.
While looking at your post and watching the video, I asked myself if there is some sort of clear edge between vellus- and terminal hair. Is there some sort of trigger, or is it more like a longer process? It seems that the germans and Dr Gardner somehow disagree about this, at least in the eyes of a layman.
And if the germans would implant the vellus hair and it turns out to function perfectly. Wouldn´t that procedure only has to go through a safety trial, since it is some sort of HT? Thank you very much again.

[nameless]

hey desmond,

you mentioned that their bioengineered follicles are currently not terminal yet, only vellus-like hairs. so i assume they never tried to implant those follicles into human scalp yet, what do you think?

but what if this micro follicle is already enough to trigger further mechanisms after implantation? what if the follicle starts to grow, or if it triggers the surrounding cells to strengthen the follicle? did they ever tested it to see the outcome? or do they need official trials for that, which is not going to happen before they create terminal hairs.

implanting those vellus-like hair would also show some other aspects, e.g. does the hair stay in vellus condition or does it fall out immediately? or what happens to that implanted follicle in general? see some reactions etc. would be interesting. it's completely different than playing the in-vitro game only...

I think you have a good point. I think they should implant the follicles now as they are to see what happens. They could add growth factors by way of adding the AAPE extract mentioned in the adipose stem cell study. They don't need histogen.

[joachim]

seems like the video link has been removed by winston. just wanted to watch the presentation but can't find the link anymore. why is that?

[sdsurfin]

Hi Desmond. Thank you so much for doing this, especially so professionally.
I have a question for you or every other member that would be kind enough to answer it, if you don´t mind.
While looking at your post and watching the video, I asked myself if there is some sort of clear edge between vellus- and terminal hair. Is there some sort of trigger, or is it more like a longer process? It seems that the germans and Dr Gardner somehow disagree about this, at least in the eyes of a layman.
And if the germans would implant the vellus hair and it turns out to function perfectly. Wouldn´t that procedure only has to go through a safety trial, since it is some sort of HT? Thank you very much again.

I think that this is probably what most of the research teams are asking themselves. Nobody really has an answer for you, but it seems like the day is not too far off where they try to implant these neopapillae in a human scalp. The taiwanese are probably doing something very similar already. In my mind, there are still so many questions left, even if they do make a terminal hair in the lab. The sebaceous gland issue is one of them, but all in all the balding scalp just seems to be such an inhospitable environment. If the breakdown of the fat layer is so important, then what is going to stop the existing dying follicles from sending those signals and ruining the environment for the new follicles? Hopefully this technique will bring positive surprises, and not everything will be biologically set up against the new follicles. maybe they will improve the surrounding tissue. we can only hope. right now it's all still very speculative, but regenerating organs of all types in the lab seems to be a future certainty.

My guess is that when a follicle develops in the embryo, there is a constant stream over time of the right combinations of gorwth factors, nutrients, etc, that guide the HF cells to become a terminal hair. Even babies' hair is thin and wispy, it takes time for follicles to become mature. In that light, I don't know why it would be expected for hair follicles to create terminal hairs in the span of 14 days. Might it make sense to determine which growth factors are expressed just at that crucial moment when a baby's hair turns from wispy to full and terminal? I feel like the keys to the puzzle lie in that transition. i assume it would be hard to get baby scalp samples though

[sascha]

mmmmm I see, thanks for the reply. yes the thing with the baby scalp sounds very macabre hahahah but I think you are on to something, that jump from vellus to terminal seems critical.
Desmond did Dr Lindner or Dr Atac tell you about how much they improved exactly from 2011(clearly vellus) to 2013(????)..... I can´t really tell from the presentation ?!?!

[joachim]

they should definitely try to implant those micro follicles and see what happens after some weeks or months in human scalp. sd surfin brought up a good point with the fact that a terminal hair within 14 days maybe isn't even possible to develop.

all in all, i don't know what to think of TU Berlin's approach anymore. it all looks very promising with their biochip circulation and coating techniques etc. but in the end there is also a big chance that it could never produce good cosmetic results or overcome the problems with seb. gland. let's see what happens in the next 2 years and if they can achieve some progress.
maybe desmond saw some more details on their laptop which pointed into a more promising future. however, i'm still a bit dissapointed that there is not more progress since their first lab grown follicle in 2010. i think, we'll see similar findings and presentations during the next 3 years about DP culturing advancements but without any real indication for a cure. damn it

[sdsurfin]

they should definitely try to implant those micro follicles and see what happens after some weeks or months in human scalp. sd surfin brought up a good point with the fact that a terminal hair within 14 days maybe isn't even possible to develop.

all in all, i don't know what to think of TU Berlin's approach anymore. it all looks very promising with their biochip circulation and coating techniques etc. but in the end there is also a big chance that it could never produce good cosmetic results or overcome the problems with seb. gland. let's see what happens in the next 2 years and if they can achieve some progress.
maybe desmond saw some more details on their laptop which pointed into a more promising future. however, i'm still a bit dissapointed that there is not more progress since their first lab grown follicle in 2010. i think, we'll see similar findings and presentations during the next 3 years about DP culturing advancements but without any real indication for a cure. damn it

Yeah agreed. Seems like very slow progress. I think there's a lack of imagination, as the real hurdle seems to lie in how follicles develop at the neonatal stage. I'm kind of baffled at the fact that they can make a human lung, but not a hair follicle. There's something about the interaction of these cells that is missing, and I don't think any of these teams are onto the real key yet. That's just my hunch. Growth factors and spatial grouping seem to be important, but my guess is that there's a very specific (and possibly undecipherable) chain of chemical events that needs to happen, but also that the follicle needs a steady (and much more complete) avenue of nourishment and encouragement for much longer than 14 days to reach its full potential. Implantation of these seed germs is so crucial to understanding what they need, I really hope they get on it quickly. Desmond's news is encouraging, but could just as easily fall into the "in five years" promise. Just because we can imagine a solution doesn't mean it won't take another century to get there. If the progress over the past three years (basically almost nothing) is seen as an indication of the speed of things, theres no way we're anywhere close in terms of a cosmetic solution. hoping someone pulls out a miracle discovery.

[Armandein]

I'm kind of baffled at the fact that they can make a human lung, but not a hair follicle. .

Yes, but hair follicle is more complex that lung,..., than heart, and possibly even than brain ...... hair follicle or better pilosebaceous unit is very very complex, there is most of biological system of our, hormonal, circulatory, inmune, nervous, etce etc, more than a static miniorgan, it have stem cells to regrow after it lost, and even more complicated because it has Asynchronized hair cycle.....

..... It is more easy to grow in a lab a heart, a lung, a spleen, eye, or brain before we can make a simple? hair. But surely we can make great advances.