ACell, a Current Review of Applications in Hair Transplant Surgery

[Westonci]

Westonci and HairRobinHood

Thank you for the lively discussion of WNT. Doubtlessly the WNT pathway is critical in the formation of hair follicles. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the WNT pathway is activated when ACell coated plucked hair is implanted in the skin. However, I would be very cautious about adding exogenous WNT proteins as this may disturb the delicate balance of stimulatory/inhibitory factors present in this context. For example, it is well known that activation of WNT/beta-catenin is associated with tumor formation, which is why Cotsarelis' approach is requiring such careful animal studies and will be subjected to close regulatory scrutiny. In the past, some thought that Sonic Hedgehog stimulation had potential for hair loss treatment, but I believe that tumor formation occurred which shut down any further work on this. It may be that the Histogen approach, which uses a mix of embryonic proteins secreted by neonatal fibroblasts, is more desirable because that stimulatory/inhibitory system is already built in.

Regardless, use of either approach would require FDA supervised studies and should not be done by the surgeon at this time just to 'see what happens'. ACell is already FDA approved for wound healing and can be safely used as an adjunct to transplanting plucked hairs.

Thanks again for the thought provoking discussion.

Sorry for bombarding you with millions of questions, but Im wondering how much you are charging per plucked hair. Even if you are not sure, could you estimate how much it would cost so that we could have an idea how much we should be saving for such procedure (and yes im aware that the results may or may not be permanent at this time).

Having said that, God bless you Dr. Cooley for your hard work, and I know that your name and Dr Hitzigs will go down in the history books for your contributions in this feild.