Cure for hair loss has arrived - Shiseido results are in

I think the strategy of injecting dissociated cells into the skin can now be officially declared dead.

I agree with you on this. Scientists finally hit the dead end with this approach. I’m not even sure which photo shows better results before or after?

What do you think where Dr. P.Kemp & HairClone are heading to? It would be astonishing to see Dr. P. Kemp to repeat Intercytex conclusion for the second time.

Dr.P. Kemp, K. Washenick and a few others managed to regrow lush hair from DP cells alone on mice though.

I think it’s either impossible to regrow hair from differentiated cells DP or DSC cells on humans or they have still not solved inductivity issue. In any away this current product of Shiseido-Replicel won’t sell.

I think this method of multiplying differentiated DP or DSC cells and then injecting them will be shelved for decades.

I don’t know what approach Dr Kemp is taking, but if it involves injecting dissociated differentiated cells, I think it’s going nowhere.

These results from Shiseido/Replicel are basically just as bad as Replicel’s very small first proof of concept trial in Europe, years ago. I was hoping they would have successfully tweaked some things about their protocol since then, but these results are a very strong indication that nothing has changed. It looks to me like this is now a zombie treatment.

What really shocked me about these results though was that whatever minimal improvement you get from this procedure, the results disappear by about 9 months unless there is additional treatment.

I had not expected the new follicles to be permanent from Shiseido & Replicel, but I did expect them to last for at least 1-2 years, not as short as 9 months.

Now I think the only hope for anything approaching a real unlimited hair cure is in vitro creation of new follicles, using stem cells, which is what Tsuji (Riken) and Terskyh (Stemson) are doing.

Cells can still work if the cells are hair-induced cells. We know this because Jahoda grew hair with hair induced cells. The problem with Shiseido’s cells is that they aren’t induced.

That having been said, the Shiseido treatment might still be useful in protecting the hair that you have, albeit for just 9 month. It seems to me that whether or not it’s worthwhile depends on how much trouble you have to go to get access to the treatment and how much the treatment costs. For example, if you could get the treatment in America and it cost $1,000 or $2,000 every 9 months it might be worth it to you to protect what you have.

And if you get all of your hair back from Tsuju’s treatment but you started to lose that new Tsuji hair after a few years, instead of paying Tsuji a ton of money to get re-treated with his treatment you could opt to pay $1,000 every 9 months to Shiseido to get your hair revitalized for 9 months. And you could do it again and again and again, every 9 months. And you could theoretically protect your hair fo the rest of your life that way.

So do you have to get more follicles harvested after 9 months? Using up more donor hair? Just for a very MINIMAL improvement? Seriously as Otter mentioned the results are barely visible.

Good point.

But couldn’t you just have cells cryopreserved?

I meant to say that you wouldn’t have to keep taking follicles from the donor area each time you got a new Shiseido injection (every 9 months) because after you harvest follicles once you could culture the cells to make enough for the first Shiseido injection and store enough of them on ice to last a lifetime. As a matter of fact, that’s the model HairClone intends to use.

And while the results are barely visible in a patch it could make a big visible difference if you had a full head of intermediate hairs and you turned them all into terminal hairs.

I’m talking about using Shiseido’s treatment if you get Tsuji’s treatment and the new Tsuji hair starts thinning after some years. In other words, you would have a full head of hair (thanks to Tsuji’s treatment) but it would be starting to thin again. So instead of paying $50,000 - $100,000 for another Tsuji treatment you just use Shiseido’s treatment (every 9 months) to revitalize the hair.

So, in addition to paying for the treatment every 9 months, you also have to pay for cell storage… for life. All that for an abysmally crummy treatment with results that seem to be clearly inferior to Finasteride, maybe even worse than Rogaine?

Jarjar, for your knowledge, Jahoda extracted x amount of fresh DP cells and reinplanted fresh x-1 amount of fresh DP cells on the back of a human palm where there was never a hair follicle before. And it created follicle deNovo. So yes, you are right, he proved all that you need is inductive DP cells to create hair follicle deNovo inVitro. But he never multiplied cells. The problem with funneling DP or DSC cells through passages of multiplication that cells loose inductivity.
Jahoda proved concept but he did not multiply cells.

You’re right Otter. And i believe that Shiseido & Replicel have done nothing to address the inductivity issue, caused by multiple passages in culture, in their protocol. Furthermore I think all the attempts to address this issue specifically - particularly by Jahoda and Christiano, who have been working on the issue for a good 5+ years - have not been very successful to date… If they had been successful, we would know about it by now.

I know this. I have always said that loss of inductivity during culture is the problem. I’ve known this for some years. I also suspected this would prevent Shiseido’s treatment from working. My only point is that if someone figures out a way to protect inductivity during culture that should result in total regrowth. Nobody has used inductive hair cells that have been cultured in a human being to see if it works. So don’t count cell therapies (for hair loss) out yet because we need to see what cell therapies can do if the cells are cultured AND induced. I’m still of the mind that HairClone, Tsuji, and J. Hewitt can do. All 3 of those treatments supposedly involve cultured cells that retain their inductivity.

Shiseido’s cell treatment isn’t induced so it really never had a chance. They were stupid for wasting money trying uninduced cells even though both Aderans and Intercytex failed with their uninduced cells.

I hope researchers are done wasting time on uninduced cells to grow hair.

Tsuji claims he has solved the inductivity problem. I think HairClone says he has too. I think J. Hewitt also says he has solved the conductivity problem. And I think other research groups have recently claimed that they’ve also solved the indicitity problem.

Roger it’s not time to give up on cell-based therapies for hair loss. But it is PAST time to give up on uninduced cell therapies for hair loss. Three companies failed with uninduced hair cells 5 or 6 years ago. One company was named Aderans, another company was named Intercytex, and I don’t recall the name of the 3rd company that failed with uninduced cells.

But the point is that after those 3 failures it was a waste of money for Shiseido and Replicel to bother attempting to use uninduced cells to grow hair. Shiseido should have donated that money to help the homeless instead. It was stupid for them to waste time trying uninduced cell. It won’t work.

I’m not giving up on cell based therapies at all. I don’t think people see how cell based therapies break down. It’s this way -

THE THREE CATEGORIES OF POTENTIAL CELL BASED THERAPIES ARE:

  1. Injection of cultured dissociated (suspended in solution) differentiated cells which are weakly inductive. This was Aderans, Intercytex and also includes Replicel.

  2. Injection of cultured diasociated (suspended in solution) differentiated cells which have been made STRONGLY inductive. This is only HYPOTHETICAL, we don’t even know if this can be done, and so far years of research in culturing cells in droplets, upside down, tweaking and monitoring their genetics to see what genes are active, etc. HAVE PRODUCED NOTHING. Needless to say, NO ONE is successfully doing this, although Drs J & C researched the hell out of it and Dr K has said some things about it. I don’t see this line of research yielding anything useful for the foreseeable future (maybe 10 years, if ever). So I see this as effectively a research dead end. I wouldn’t even waste time thinking/dreaming about this anymore. I think it won’t be happening in a very long time, if ever.

  3. Building brand new follicles in the lab, from human stem cells (whether iPS cells, embryonic, somatic/HF stem cells, etc.) plus various other types of cells to help the stem cells, FOR LATER IMPLANTATION IN THE SCALP. This is Drs Tsuji, Terskykh, etc. AND remember that Dr Christiano is also working on this line of research, as well (we shouldn’t confuse her earlier research on #2 above with her more recent work with in vitro follicles). ALSO NOTE VERY CLEARLY that for this line of research, INDUCTIVITY IS NOT AN ISSUE AT ALL.

Of the three types of cells based treatments, I think 1 and 2 are basically PERMANENT DEAD ENDS, and only 3 offers any hope.

I think (number 2) injecting induced stem cells may prove effective. I don’t think you need to make the entire follicle and then inject the follicle. As a matter of fact, I think injecting induced cells would probably provide the better aesthetic result.

And I think Shiseido’s treatment could be more cost-effective than repeat Tsuji treatments if you ever needed a booster after you already recovered your hair via Tsuji’s treatment.

And I also think the Shiseido treatment might be able to protect the hairs of someone who is just starting to thin. I really think that Shiseido could profit if they brought their treatment to market.

@jarjarbinx looks like you’re confusing some things here. Number 2 is not about stem cells, it’s about DIFFERENTIATED cells, like DP and DSC cells. Stem cells is ONLY number 3, and stem cells are undifferentiated.

Also, the word “induced” is confusing. There are 2 completely different meanings of “induced” or 'induction". Inductiveness or inductivity applies ONLY to undifferentiated cells (in 1 and 2), specifically their ability to induce or provoke follicles (miniaturized ones or new ones) to grow.

That word, “induced” applies also to “induced pluripotent stem cells”, which is one option in approach 3 above. This kind of induction has nothing to do with the inductivity of differentiated cells (like DP cells in 1 or 2). The word has the same root, but they are 2 completely different meanings of the word “induce”. The concepts are not directly related at all.

I think attempts to grow hair follicles in vivo will be abandoned for indefinite time now.

Maybe the reason why Terskih, Tsuji, Hewitt chose not to pursue the path of Intercytex, Aderans, Replicel, was issue of cells’ inductivity.

I think Intercytex, Aderans, Replicel and HairClone were first generation companies in this business.

Otter yes, agree. I think in vivo growing of new follicles as a therapy (which is 1 and 2 above), hit a brick wall with Replicel.

Now we have 3 major well funded companies who have put millions each into this approach and like Intercytex and Aderans before them, Replicel has shown practically nothing compelling.

You could do the same thing Jarjar is talking about - using Replicel to preserve hair from Tsuji or Terskyh - by just using Finasteride, Dutasteride or even Rogaine.

Replicel appears to be no better than any of those 3 existing treatments.

If Replicel does what Shiseido claims it does than some people could view it as better than Finasteride, Dutasteride, and Rogaine in a couple of ways -

  1. With Replicel you wouldn’t have to apply stuff to the top of your head twice per day or take pills that could have negative effects on your hormonal system.

  2. With Replicel it would be one treatment every 9 months instead of a daily regimen of Finasteride + minoxidil + Dutasteride.

True, but what exactly does Shiseido claim Replicel can do? They’ve been waiting for the results for a long time, and now that we see the results, we know what it can do. Not much!