Official Hair Loss Breakthroughs and Future Treatments Tread (Check for Updates!)

[Blake Bloxham]

Hi DHT,

 

Yes, I believe Histogen is still experiencing funding issues. I believe the most recent reply from Dr. Ziering's clinic echoed this same information and recommended ACell and PRP therapy.

 

I'm not certain where you could receive ACell + PRP injections in the UK. Are you considering this therapy? Please keep in mind that it is still, for the most part, unproven.

[HARIRI]

How about Dr. Nigam and his cooperation with Dr. Mwamba. Anyone heard about Mwamba's opinion and recent findings of Nigam's invitro hair doubling technique?

[Blake Bloxham]

Har,

 

I think Dr. Mwamba shared a recent update. If I remember correctly, he said a patient who underwent both in-vitro bisection donor doubling and stem cell injection (which is odd because I though he was only researching the donor doubling aspect) came in for a 5 month update and has not yet seen any changes. What's more, Dr. Nigam is sharing some sort of poster presentation at WCHR later this month.

 

Seems like the "jury is still out!"

[Blake Bloxham]

"8th World Congress for Hair Research" Begins on May 14th, 2014 in Korea

 

Each year, scientists from around the globe gather at the World Congress for Hair Research to discuss the newest findings and breakthroughs in the field of hair loss research. This year the conference is being hosted by the Korean Hair Research Society in Jeju Island, Korea. Starting on May 14th, 2014, the conference features a number of exciting presentations and discussions about cutting-edge research and potential new treatments. These presentations include: updates on the 3-D culturing model of dermal papilla stem cells and its application in hair multiplication; techniques for "reprogramming" normal skin fibroblast cells into dermal papilla cells (hair follicle stem cells); and a technique for creating large amounts of multiplied/cloned hair follicles in a chip bioreactor.

 

What's more, several members of other online hair restoration discussion forums started a crowdfunding initiative and raised enough capital to send a member to report on the conference. The member (who I do not believe posts on our forums) has a background in science and has agreed to record and report on the conference and interview several prominent researchers.

 

The conference will be held from May 14th through the 17th, and I will keep this thread updated with news from the meeting as it unfolds!

Edited May 8, 2014 by Future_HT_Doc

[Spanker]

Exciting!

[Blake Bloxham]

Updates from the 8th World Congress for Hair Research:

 

5/14/14 (Day 1)

 

-The member from the other forum (who posts under the username "Desmond84") attended a presentation on "burning scalp syndrome." I've seen posts from several forum members (over the years) complaining of similar symptoms, so this could be helpful for these individuals! He will post more details about the burning scalp syndrome presentation tonight.

 

-Desmond also scheduled interviews with Dr. George Cotsarelis from the University of Pennsylvania and Follica, who is famous for his work with PGD2 inhibitors, fgf9, and scalp wounding, and Dr. Linder and Dr. Beren Atac from Dr. Lauster's group in Germany, who are presenting their work culturing large numbers of hair follicles in a chip bioreactor.

 

Check back for more updates!

[mariachi]

blake

desmons just mentioned that dr nigam will not present his abstracts in the conference

what do you think about that?

[Blake Bloxham]

Mariachi,

 

It is interesting ...

 

Dr. Nigam seems to have found some controversy lately. Granted, we are only seeing information online, but it seems like he's been involved in a few legal battles and his initial donor doubling/stem cell treated patients appear less than satisfied.

 

What's more, I believe a forum member (who posts both here and on the other forum) reached out to the Congress and expressed concerns with Dr. Nigam presenting at the symposium.

 

Now, there could also be a simple reason why he didn't present - busy, family issues, emergency, etc. - but it's all conjecture at this point in time. Dr. Nigam is still very much welcome to post on our forums, so maybe he will fill us in.

 

Also, I'm not sure what he was actually presenting at the congress.

 

PS: More updates on the congress coming later today!

[mariachi]

he was supposed to present de novo doubling (apply dp cells , growth factors ,ecm) to reduce white dots

and the hair doubling technique(bisection of the graft)

but the thing that confuses me that dr mwamba said that his test patient didn't get any results after 5 month post op(bisection of graft) while dr mwamba saw the bisected grafts growing at the head of dr nigam patient 3 months post op

is it possible that the telogen phase differ from person to another?

[Blake Bloxham]

Mariachi,

 

Thank you for clarifying. I thought this is what he was discussing, but I couldn't actually find his presentation on the official program.

 

I'm still a bit confused when it comes to Dr. Nigam's donor doubling technique. Like I've said for quite some time now, I really think donor doubling will be the "next big thing" once someone finally works it out. Although it would likely be VERY time consuming and only feasible in small sessions, I think the in-vitro bisection method makes a lot of sense. What's more, if the theory of full follicle regeneration from the implantation of bulge stem cells holds true, there shouldn't be the need to do any more than simply bisect the follicles and implant. However, both Dr. Nigam and Dr. Mwamba seem to have added extra growth factors and other injectables while attempting the bisection technique. In my opinion, this makes it difficult to assess and also makes the procedure only available in regions with less stringent regulations on stem cells.

 

Like you said, Dr. Mwamba stated that his 5 month patient showed no real improvement. However, the timeline for regrowth with donor doubling isn't well established because it's all fairly new protocol. Because of this, we should likely wait 12-18 months before fully evaluating. What's more, I do hope they do further testing with donor doubling without any sort of additional growth factors.

 

Yes, the telogen phase can differ as well.

[mariachi]

thanks blake

i agree with you that dr mwamba should do a test without adding any growth factors or any injection

we want this technique (if worked) to be performed in europe or north america

[Blake Bloxham]

8th World Congress for Hair Research Update:

 

5/15/14:

 

-Desmond was able to interview Dr. Gerd Lindner and Dr. Beren Atac. Dr. Lauster's research group continues researching at a rapid pace and both scientists believe they have overcome a lot of the problems hindering dermal papilla stem cell culturing. This includes maintaining a large portion of the genetic material in the "cloned" dermal papilla cells, which is the necessary "blue print" for actually growing hair. The researchers also hinted that it could be 3-4 years before a phase 1 clinical trial begins, which means anywhere between 9 to 12 years before a hair multiplication therapy could potentially be approved.

 

-He also spoke with Dr. George Cotseralis from Follica and the University of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, Dr. Cotseralis stated that Follica completed phase 2 trails with their scalp wounding therapy, but the company ran into funding issues and cannot move forward. He stated that it would take a minimum of two million dollars to produce a product superior than minoxidil/finasteride, and up to 20 million dollars to produce a "cure." He also believes the fgf9 growth factor possesses a lot of potential, but still requires years of clinical research.

 

Stay tuned for more updates!

[Spanker]

If there were any evidence that 2 million would produce a better product there would be backers for that. Hell, he'd probably be able to raise that much on kickstarter if the science was sound.

[Paulygon]

Thanks for the interesting info, Blake. Yes, adding growth factors seems to taint the study, imo.

[Blake Bloxham]

Final World Congress for Hair Research Update:

 

-The Congress is over and Desmond is returning back home.

 

-During the last few days of the Congress, he recorded presentations from Dr. Lauster's group (Dr. Atec and Dr. Lindner's work with creating follicles in the chip bioreactor) and Dr. Jahoda's group. These were some of the most anticipated presentations at the congress, and Desmond will upload the recordings by this Sunday.

 

-Desmond also spoke with a research group working on a more effective preventive medication. The group analyzed the differences between gene expression in dermal papilla cells in balding scalp and non-balding scalp. They then looked at the proteins created by transcription and translation of these genes. By isolating the different proteins in balding and non-balding scalp, the group thinks they can identify key proteins in the androgenic alopecia process and develop medications to block them. By blocking these proteins, the group hopes to create more effective preventive medications. It is uncertain, at this time, how far the research has progressed.

 

I will update again when the records are uploaded.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Future_HT_Doc

[Blake Bloxham]

"Q & A with Dr. Aaron Gardner:"

 

Hi Guys,

 

In an interesting turn of events, Dr. Aaron Gardner from Dr. Jahoda's research group (the group responsible for discovering the 3-D dermal papilla culturing method) created an account at the other hair loss forum and offered to answer questions about hair loss research and the future of potential treatments. This is really the first time a hair loss researcher of this caliber shared insight on a forum, and I wanted to report on some of his replies:

 

-Dr. Gardner's insight on "what we know today:"

 

"To answer your questions it might be best first to lay out our current aims/understanding:

 

1) Rat whisker dermal papilla (DP) can be isolated, cultured and re-implanted into the skin to induce new follicles.

 

2) Fresh, whole human DP can be re-implanted to induce a follicle.

 

3) 2D cultured human DP lose this ability to induce follicle.

 

4) Dr Higgins in her paper demonstrated this nicely by by performing a micro-array, (a technique which compares, in bulk, gene expression between two or more samples). She showed that there was significant variation in several thousand genes between in vivo DP and 2D cultured DP

 

5) She also demonstrated that 3D culture of human DP restored ~40% of the in vivo DP genetic character that was lost in 2D culture

 

6) These 3D spheres were able to induce the formation of follicle structures from 5 of 7 donors with an efficiency ranging from 10-60% (i.e 10 spheres - 1 follicle structure = 10% efficiency).

 

So we want to take this further and there are several areas that we want to look at:

7) Improve efficiency, use more accessible cells, use only adult human tissues and develop a "quick" non-animal model assay.

 

8) Efficiency - Further restore in vivo DP character to 3D DP cultures, we are attempting to do this by coating the DP spheres with epithelial cells, to mimic the interactions that are occurring in vivo. These dermal-epidermal interactions are key in follicle development and subsequent hair cycling.

 

9) Accessible cells - Attempt to restore DP character to non DP cultures. We are looking at the dermal sheath (DS) as we think they are more similar in character to the DP than dermal fibroblasts (DF). But this is a stepping stone to using DF.

 

10) Adult tissues - The majority of studies which demonstrate inductivity either use mouse or neonatal human epithelial cells/tissue. This obviously wont apply in patient so we need to demonstrate inductivity in a less "competent" tissue.

 

11) Quick assay - we need to screen for a lot of things, we need a quick, easy and cheap assay to achieve this. None of the current assays tick these boxes."

 

-So what does Dr. Gardner's research show?:

 

"12) Efficiency - Epithelial coating restores markers of inductivity that are not seen in dermal only spheres, the populations are interacting, this is great and we hope to repeat Dr Higgins microarray experiment and see if we further restore character. When this works, it works really well. BUT the efficiency of coating is poor, a lot of the time the epithelial cells don't stick to the dermal model, so no improvement in inductivity, we're not sure why this is but we are trying other methods of coating, isolation epithelial cells and epithelial cell populations.

13) Accessible cells - A better option than above, but currently none of the factors we have screened have restored DP character. We have lots more factors and will move onto multiple factor screens as well.

 

14) Adult tissues - All our work is progressing using adult tissues, but we have yet to try our new cultures in a mouse model, we will do so shortly when we have our ideal double-sphere and any promising DS-DP .

 

15) Quick model - This has worked out really nicely, we have a new model we can use in the lab to see if our spheres induce the epithelium to grow down into the dermis of our gels, which is reminiscent of initial follicle formation."

 

-Dr. Gardner's opinion on "when" any of this could be used to create a "hair loss cure:"

 

"To answer the other key question of "when". To be honest I don't know, every year we make progress as do all the other groups. I don't really believe in this "5 years" time thing, as I honestly think one group will crack it, and it will appear very rapidly after that. Look out for papers using adult only human tissues, non follicle derived dermal cells and with high reproducibility those are the ones that are going to have the widest applications."

 

-How will the angle of hair direction in these new follicles be controlled if they are simple injected into the scalp?

 

"The follicle structures orientate towards the epidermis and do not form cysts. However in the study by Dr Higgins, and my continuation of her work, we are not looking at patterning or angle of egress etc. That's something that will come when we're achieving reliable follicle induction."

 

-How does your method of creating new follicles actually work?

 

"1) Extract patient DP cells from a hair follicle

2) Rapidly expand DP cells in 2D culture (at this point we don't care about the loss of inductivity, we just want to turn 10,000 freshly isolated DP cells into 1,000,000 DP cells, then restore inductivity later)

3) Transfer DP cells into 3D hanging drop culture

4) Implant into human neonatal foreskin (highly competent) but are switching to adult abdominal tissue, we insert the spheres into the skin and then transplant everything onto the back of a mouse"

 

-What about the role of the sebaceous gland?

 

"Simply put yes a sebaceous gland is vital. It plays a key role in hair shaft maintenance and defence. During development the sebaceous gland develops from the downgrowing epithelium, where the signal for this is coming from I don't know. It's going to be one of the really important questions, can whatever construct we or others start using communicate with 'adult' tissues and induce formation of these structures and other structures."

 

-What do you know about Dr. Lauster's group and their work with creating follicles in a chip bio-reactor?

 

"Yes, their system is amazing for producing structures like that in vitro and they presented data showing the development of a hair shaft. But, the follicles that are produced, currently, by the system are tiny. The follicles produced may expand after implantation, or their system may be scaled up to produce larger follicles and I guess this is what they will be looking into."

 

-Has any research group created a functional lab grown follicle and implanted it into a human?

 

"Not that I'm aware of. It's possible that someone's tried it but I'm not aware of it."

 

-Is your lab working on a "hair loss cure?"

 

"Prof. Jahoda’s lab is a research lab not clinical, so we are not directly working towards a clinical trial. However there is nothing limiting other groups more set up to perform clinical trials from using Prof. Jahoda's research in their trials."

 

"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."

 

-What about injecting growth factors into the scalp?

 

"There are several problems with injecting growth factors:

 

1) They often have a very short half life, i.e. they degrade very quickly.

2) Generation of factors that can be used in the clinic is extremely expensive.

3) It is very difficult to target the factors.

4) 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."

 

**I just wanted to state that this information was re-produced for educational purposes. I do not claim any of this content as my own, nor am I aware of any issues with sharing this information on these forums. If anyone has a problem with this or would like this information removed, please feel free to send me a private message or an email at support@hairtransplantnetwork.com. Thank you!**

[Blake Bloxham]

TL;DR version of the above content:

 

- 3-D culturing of dermal papilla stem cells leads to 40% (approximately) retention of the genes in a normal dermal papilla cell. These are able to induce a follicle-like structure with an efficacy of 10%-60% (i.e. creating 10 3-D dermal papilla spheres and this inducing 1 follicles = an efficacy of 10%).

 

-Dr. Gardner's group is attempting to improve this by coating the 3-D dermal papilla spheres with epithelial cells, but they are experiencing difficulty with regard to making the cells stick.

 

-His group isn't working on a hair loss "cure," but they do believe their research could be used by more commercial groups to create something.

 

-The role of interactions within the entire scalp is HUGE with regard to creating new hair follicles. Unfortunately, the problem isn't as simple as "hair multiplication" as we know it. It will likely involve understanding how all the different cells and signaling pathways in the scalp interact and recreating this environment.

 

-Thus far, no group has recreated a follicle and implanted it into a human.

 

-There are issues with regard to simply injecting growth factors into the scalp

[Blake Bloxham]

More From Dr. Gardner:

 

-The next issue his group may evaluate could be the addition of adipose (fat) cells and melanocyte (pigment producing) cells to the dermal papilla spheres. This will help determine the interaction between these cells and the role they play in actually creating hair.

[krazyXplorer]

BREAKTHROUGH : Now even vaginas can be regenerated in the labs artificially.

 

Wondering When will this happens for Hair.

 

**Outside link removed by moderator. Please see our Terms of Service for more information. Thank you.**

Edited June 16, 2014 by Future_HT_Doc

[Blake Bloxham]

Krazy,

 

Unfortunately, creating a fully functional organ/organoid like a hair follicle is proving to be more complicated than recreating a structural piece of organic material (like a vagina). While several research groups are working on this issue, and I invite you to review the thread and read about this exciting research, we are still likely a ways away.

[Akashgpt862]

I think recreating a hair follicle is like creating a new organism that has the ability to repair itself and that will be there for endless time . May be if we find a way to recreate a follicle it will open the gates for those who have lost there arms and legs , by injecting theese type of cells they are giving cells to body that can recreate a whole part of body .

 

Dieing everyday , due to hair loss .

[Paulygon]

:confused:

Amazing that creating a new vagina is simpler than copying a hair follicle...

:mad:

[jaity]

I take it must be a bald vagina then

 

Kind of ironic really , most men want these labs to develop hair to transplant so they can stand more chance with women. Now the scientists have managed to clone the thing they are ultimately after

[krazyXplorer]

Found this. http://news.yahoo.com/video/researchers-claim-baldness-cure-found-120015236.html

[cormacsullivan30]

I need ur help hair cloning won't be here for a long time so I'm having a procedure in the uk called m.s.p iv not got enough money for a ht so I'm thinking of having this done I'm just worried bout it blending in the colour will it fade the density etc could you mail me on wat u guys think as I wana get on with life