Hair Loss Science

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I'm really beginning to think that a lot these so-called hair loss researchers are just in business to make money and gain exposure for their novel research and they really don't give a damn about developing a cure for baldness. I've been searching like crazy over the internet for so-called hair loss cures and all I've seen are studies and experiments about how certain substances and complexes grew hair on mice, but are never applied to grow hair on humans. I've noticed that since 1990 it has been known that wnt and noggin proteins are involved in increased hair growth, so why is it that since then, only one company (Histogen) has attempted to develop a drug that uses this principle to develop a marketable drug to regrow hair. So many other growth factors, such as hepatocyte growth factor (HGF), beta catenin, and the LEF-1 transcription factor, have been known for about 20 years to induce hair growth, yet no one has even attempted to create a drug based on these principles that would be beneficial to humans. I am aware that too rapid of growth induced by these chemicals could cause benign tumors to occur, but you would think that after all these years, there would be a way to overcome this.
A lot of the top hair loss scientists do not suffer from baldness themselves, so they have no real incentive to create an effective remedy for hair loss. They just publicize all of these so-called hair growth discoveries in mice to bring more attention, exposure, and ultimately more money to their labs and themselves. I don't know, maybe I'm just cynical because I see all of these supposedly novel and interesting discoveries related to hair loss, yet all that has been produced so far are marginally effective (at best) remedies like Rogaine and Propecia, and ineffective hair transplants.

[gmonasco]

I'm really beginning to think that a lot these so-called hair loss researchers are just in business to make money and gain exposure for their novel research and they really don't give a damn about developing a cure for baldness.

Every year for decades now, Jerry Lewis has been raising millions of dollars for muscular dystrophy research, yet there's still no cure in sight. Do you suppose that all that money goes to uncaring, lazy scientists who simply blow it on whatever strikes their fancy, or is it perhaps more likely that they're dealing with a very complex biological issue with no easy or obvious solution?

A lot of the top hair loss scientists do not suffer from baldness themselves, so they have no real incentive to create an effective remedy for hair loss.

Was the polio vaccine developed by a doctor with polio? Do you suppose every single cancer researcher himself suffers from cancer? Do you think that no one conducting research into hair loss knows someone (a colleague, a friend, a relative) who suffers from hair loss? Or is it maybe possible that people can be motivated by something other than their direct personal circumstances?

[RichardDawkins]

Thank you guys for your Opinion, much ahhhh appreciated

[DepressedByHairLoss]

It's not that I think a lot of these scientists are lazy and uncaring. I just think that if they personally felt the devastating effects of male pattern baldness, then they would be more eager to put a product out on the market, instead of saying that they have POSSIBLY found a hair loss cure that will be available within the next 10 YEARS. It's just frustrating that there are all of these proven hair growth agents like WNT, noggin, the LEF-1 transcription factor, and hedgehog agonists, yet no one seems to have attempted to bring a product using these principles to the market. Sure, there may be risks associated with these treatments, but I would accept these risks and try some type of WNT or noggin treatment in a second in order to grow my hair back. I mean, everyone already knows that a million and a half things produce hair growth in mice, but they don't mean a damn thing unless they're tried out on humans.
There are some other stem cell type treatments out there like PRP and Adipose Stem Cell Therapy, yet none of these treatments has been proven to even remotely generate as much hair as the methods that I mentioned in the first paragraph.

[johnnyboots]

the reason is, to my knowledge no one has died from mpb.

[gmonasco]

It's not that I think a lot of these scientists are lazy and uncaring. I just think that if they personally felt the devastating effects of male pattern baldness, then they would be more eager to put a product out on the market

Do you recall this recent article about researchers' having "grown the world’s first hair follicle using stem cells"?

http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20101214-31797.html

The primary research scientist cited in the article was Dr. Roland Lauster. This is a picture of Dr. Lauster:

http://www.pressestelle.tu-berlin.de..._Lauster-6.jpg

The frustration of waiting for a solution to hair loss is quite understandable, and frustrated people naturally seek someone (or something) to blame. But I think placing the blame on scientists is misdirected. Of all the factors that might hold back a hair loss solution, I think the notion that scientists simply don't care ranks very, very low.

[DepressedByHairLoss]

I not blaming anybody. I just think that it's kind of fishy when I see like a million "potential cures" that grow hair on mice but have never been tried on humans. It would be more believable at least some of these techniques were tried on humans but none of them ever are. All of those techniques that I have mentioned in previous e-mails have been tried on mice for 20 years yet have never been even tried on humans. You can do a search on the internet and find a hundreds of so-called cures that have grown hair on mice, but have never been tried on humans.
I think that a lot of these drug companies realize that drugs that cure something provide much less of a profit than drugs that people constantly need to take for the rest of their lives. A "cure", you need to take only once or a handful of times and then you are "cured" and don't need to take it anymore. These drugs that "treat" a certain disease or condition need to be taken for the rest of a person's life, and therefore generate a lot more profits for the drug companies. Look at Rogaine, it doesn't do a damn thing yet it generates billions of profits and people need to continuously take it in order for it to work.
Even Chris Rock (albeit jokingly) touched on it in his comedy routine, saying that the pharmaceutical industry is not interested in curing anything because that's not where the money is. Instead we have to deal with this crap like Rogaine, Propecia, and hair transplants which really don't do a damn thing.