US government owned patent on hair follicle neogensis

[Vox]

Guys.... This is the biggest and most promising news I have ever seen in the last 10 years of my life combating against hair loss. All other solutions on the pipeline are now on the sideline.
I have my utmost trust on US Military Medicals as they have by far the best technology.

This.

The only question is 1- They would keep it highly confidential since its military. But we need to know when they are planning to lunch so it would become mainstream for everyone of us.

And this. We talk about the military here. The obvious and utmost interest is to rehabilitate their injured soldiers. It is unknown if and when such techniques will go outside the military medical field.

U.S. Army is the only force in existence at this moment that can really do something about tissue regeneration with practical applications. All other players, discussed so much in this forum, are ants in front of them. But, again, the big question is if and when the general public will benefit from such biotechnological progress. And don't hope to learn anything more than what it is publicly available by directly contacting them.

[JayM]

The thing is though as lacazette mentioned they will be looking to expand it to the general public because they will need to make money on it at some point - Better than selling guns ay

We all know that the DOD in many countries like to be secretive but it wouldn't really need to be the case here. And once they start performing these on a bigger scale you will need to outsource and it comes to a point where the public would have a right to access the care - Even if its insanely priced. An insane amount of things we have access to today are from the military and most advances aren't withheld.

[lacazette]

Yes they say to have a succesful skin graft, the major issues were skin with sweat glands, appropriate pigmentation, and hair follicles. And fully functional hair follicle is the crucial factor that current skin graft are missing.

They say their invention fills these needs
And in the patent they mention a lot about hair loss:
"that are capable of inducing hair follicles" "The present invention also relates to methods, uses, and compositions for inducing HF growth and neogenesis"

" the present invention can be used for the treatment of full- or partia!-hair loss. " full !!!

" In addition, hair restoration is one of the fastest growing areas of cosmetic therapies for both men and women. "

"Such methods and compositions would be useful for treating conditions such as full- or partial-thickness skin loss, wounds, burns, scars, and hair loss. The present invention fills these needs by providing cellular compositions capable of hair growth, neogenesis, and regeneration.


"The present invention is capable of inducing hair follicles that are morphologically-correct and are useful in any application requiring hair follicle formation/neogenesis, or in any condition where hair follicle formation/neogenesis is desired"

"methods for transplanting cells at therapeutically effective concentrations capable of inducing human hair follicles "
"the transplanted cells can be used to induce hair follicle growth or hair follicle neogenesis."

" the subject to be treated with any of the compositions or methods described above has a partial- thickness skin loss, full-thickness skin loss, a wound, a burn, a scar, or hair loss. "

All these quotes are just from the first 1/4 of the patent, so us hair loss sufferers will benefit from these progress
Yeah jay haha we don't need a complete new skin ^^ we 're are Lucky compared to severe burned face.

Well they have found what cotsarelis and follica are trying to do for years ( and it's logical as US army have unlimited money, best technologies and researchers, and burned injuries and skin loss are the most important issues in soldiers nowadays)

And what is good also is that AFIRM is in collaboration with civil entities, and that quote is very hopeful to me :
“This has very widespread use, not only to the military audience, but also to the civilian population. We NEED a larger commercialization audience in order to be a self-sustaining technology,”

And as you said, we won't need a complete new skin, just the compositions/methods for functional hair growth/neogenesis and they claimed to have them!

US army research is in the neogenesis game and it's incomparable with little private companies as follica,theracell,etc

Sounds too exciting to be true lol

[JayM]

" In addition, hair restoration is one of the fastest growing areas of cosmetic therapies for both men and women. "

This is the most important sentence for me. It shows that this therapy isn't just for burn victims or people who need skin grafts and wont just be used in the military. It shows that they plan to expand and offer this to the public.

Talking about Cotsarelis, do we know if any of these scientist worked with him before? Could be a possibility. Or maybe he just gave up the game because he was piped to it by US army?

@hellouser you know a lot about his research any insight?

[lacazette]

I agree, Jay, there's a lot of hairloss references in the patent and it claims many times (in short): 'this invention is useful to treat FULL hair loss'.
So they know it will not be useful just for skin grafts on burned patients, and the sentence you quote about hair industry just proove that thing.
they know they have gold in their hand, for sure.

other interesting quotes:

"methods are disclosed herein for transplanting cells capable of inducing human hair follicles to a subject, comprising delivering to a human subject any of the microspheres described above. In some embodiments, the microsphere is subdermally or intradermally delivered to a subject."
two approaches to deliver the cells that will induce human HF

"Also disclosed herein are the microspheres described above for use in the manufacture of a medicament for inducing hair follicle formation or for inducing hair follicle neogenesis in a subject
"

those little quotes are good also, they talk about anagen,telogen,etc, their hair are cycling and are morphologically-correct

"Fig. 15B provides a magnified view showing the presence of pigmented hair shafts."

"after 15 weeks, Figs. 16A-C show telogen hair follicles, confirmed by club-like appearance and spiky keratin fibers(Fig. 18A), secondary hair germ with adjacent hair papilla (Fig. 16B), and presence of a cornified club "

"Fig. 17B shows an anagen hair follicle with dermal papilla (arrow), including dense Ki- 67 reactivity. "


[059] In some embodiments, a subject in need of inducing hair follicle growth has partial-thickness skin loss, full-thickness skin loss, a wound, a burn, a scar, or hair loss...

I just stop at the middle of the patent, but all I read in it for the moment is just what I was dreaming to read for years hehe

[Arieux]

That's very impressive, I have never heard about this project and I didn't find any news about it on other hair loss sites. Are there any plans to continue this research and make it available in near future?

[FooFighter]

Why someone from USA don’t call them and ask? Don’t be shy guys...

[lacazette]

Really near future for US soldiers with burned, wounded face and scalp. So we will see soon if they really growing new functional hair as they are claiming in their patent.

Army research are in several FDA clinical trials regarding skin regenerative medecine. And the patent mentions a lot that their invention will be useful for hair loss.
First for their burned soldiers, but with 21st century cure bill and the fact that this is an invention for life-threatening thing. The trials could take less time.
And if accepted by the fda for the injuried soldiers, that would mean the major FDA issues would be solved so when it'll come to civil use, it will be really faster for fda approval than a novel drug/therapy coming from nowhere from a private company

When I read those quotes from US army research, I think we can have hope:
"Expanding the technology to a greater number of potential patients will also help to ensure its long-term viability, Romanko said. “This has very widespread use, not only to the military audience, but also to the civilian population. We need a larger commercialization audience in order to be a self-sustaining technology,”

"In addition to surgical burn treatment and rehabilitation, the center is participating in several clinical trials to advance skin treatments.
“We’re currently a part of two major regenerative multi-center trials,” King said. “And they are sponsored in part by the Department of Defense. (Another) group is also (involved), they’re called AFRIM, Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine — that’s a partnership between the Department of Defense and civilian entities.”

"The AFIRM is a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary network of universities, military laboratories and investigators under the framework of a cooperative agreement, Romanko said. The network is designed to promote integration of development, from basic science research through translational and clinical research, as the best means of bringing regenerative médicine therapies to practice.

""About 30 universities, hospitals and additional partners, led by the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, make up the consortium of AFIRM researchers. Romanko works with the TIRM PMO, which supports AFIRM and other regenerative medicine programs. AFIRM receives funding from the U.S. Army, the Offce of Naval Research, Air Force Surgeon General’s Offce, Veterans Health Administration, National Institutes of Health and the Offce of Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. AFIRM investigators also bring in funding from other federal, state and private sources."

[JayM]

Not to mention the new bill being passed. Has it been decided yet? Because these treatments certainly come under life saving

[Trouse5858]

So if they're going to be bio engineering the follicles does that mean that maybe they'll be able to actively select the types of characteristics (diameter/ thickness, curviness, pigment, etc.) that make up the hair itself? That would be ridiculously awesome..

[baldybald]

This is very interesting!

[Slam1523]

Not to mention the new bill being passed. Has it been decided yet? Because these treatments certainly come under life saving

If you google the bill it says that funding may hold it up, so there's no guarantee that it's going through...

[Renee]

The military does it's own separate clnical trials here is one site: http://www.clinicaltrials.army.mil

[JayM]

If you google the bill it says that funding may hold it up, so there's no guarantee that it's going through...

Today it's just got a majority vote and thus will heading to the presidents table and I think it's heavily supported. Not that I know much about American politics.

[It's2014ComeOnAlready]

Today it's just got a majority vote and thus will heading to the presidents table and I think it's heavily supported. Not that I know much about American politics.

It passed the house with 82% of votes (344/421), now it's on to the Senate. After it's passed in the Senate, it goes to the President's desk to be signed into law.

The importance here is that it has A LOT of support from both sides. Given the political climate we've seen recently, it sends a powerful statement with this much support.