Dr. Cole on ACell - Part 1

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
21

I didn’t say once or twice, I said repeatedly, which could be dozens of
times.

Why would anybody need the same hair plucked dozens of times ? You are not going to need that for Autocloning - it might be possible you would need the same hair 4 or 5 times if you have a really limited donor area - but I think that would be an extreme case.

I remember there was a guy on the forums who wanted a few hairs that were transplanted to be surgically removed from his head because all his other hair was gone and they looked silly. He wanted them surgically removed because he had plucked them out again and again - to no effect.

22

» I didn’t say once or twice, I said repeatedly, which could be dozens of
» times.
»
» Why would anybody need the same hair plucked dozens of times ? You are
» not going to need that for Autocloning - it might be possible you would
» need the same hair 4 or 5 times if you have a really limited donor area -
» but I think that would be an extreme case.
»
» I remember there was a guy on the forums who wanted a few hairs that were
» transplanted to be surgically removed from his head because all his other
» hair was gone and they looked silly. He wanted them surgically removed
» because he had plucked them out again and again - to no effect.

guys… keep in mind that this is not “normal plucking” that we are talking about here… its a special method of plucking so that it actually rips out a good portion of the follicular tissue. This kind of plucking may or may not be comparable to your average waxing… who knows?

23

» » There are no studies yet to document the yield
» » you can expect from plucking hair in the recipient area and no studies
» to
» » show that it is safe to the hairs that are plucked from the donor area.
»
»
»
» The point that Cole makes that neither Cooley nor Hitzig has
» satisfactorily demonstrated that hair regrows from a follicle, when the
» hair is plucked from that follicle, bothered me, too–but in a different
» kind of way.
»
» As long ago as the early 1960s, I remember hearing that plucked hair will
» regrow.
»
» And I supposed that statement has been made so often since then (and
» probably also before then), that everyone–doctors and scientists
» included–accept it as gospel, not thinking to take a look at the studies
» that were done to prove plucked hair regrows–or even if there ever were
» such studies.
»
» More likely this rule about plucked hair regrowing was the result of
» anecdotal observations, and not the result of a controlled experiment.
»
» And the anecdotal evidence that plucked hair regrows being so strong, it
» is pretty safe–for now–to assume that the hairs Cooley and Hitzig plucked
» did regrow.
»
» BUT since we are now talking about plucking on a large scale with the
» ultimate purpose of giving someone more hair overall than they started
» with–as opposed to the plucking of unwanted hair–it is important that a
» controlled scientific experiment be done to demonstrate that not only will
» plucked hair regrow—
»
» But that also if a follicle repeatedly has its hair plucked from it, it
» will continue to grow hair.
»
» I have suspected there is a possibility hair follicles are genetically
» programmed to cycle a fixed number of times in a person’s life.
»
» If so, each time a hair if plucked from a follicle, you might be
» shortening by 3 to 6 years, the length of time that follicle will continue
» to produce hair.
»
» Even if my suspiciion of a genetically limited number of cycles is
» incorrect, there is still a chance that repeated plucking of hair
» from the same follicle may eventually result in scarring alopecia.
»
» Until either case is tested scientifically, it seems best to be
» careful not to pluck the same donor follicle more than once, by
» carefully documenting where the hair is harvested for each plucked hair
» transplant session.
»
» And when conducting such a scientific experiment, one must remember to
» be careful not to confuse any regrowth seen in the plucked donor area,
» with the hair growing from follicles in that area that were in the dormant
» phase of the hair cycle at the time of the plucking.

why wouldn’t a plucked follicle grow back? the important question is whether the plucked follicle can grow a new hair in the recipient site. I haven’t been here for a while, am I missing something?

24

why wouldn’t a plucked follicle grow back? the important question is
whether the plucked follicle can grow a new hair in the recipient site. I
haven’t been here for a while, am I missing something?

HMorHT,
Drs Cooley & Hitzig are dipping the plucked hairs in the aCell product(extra-cellular matrix) before planting them in the recipient area, Dr Cooley is claiming 50-75% success for this when following his current protocol.

25

» why wouldn’t a plucked follicle grow back? the important question is
» whether the plucked follicle can grow a new hair in the recipient site.
» I
» haven’t been here for a while, am I missing something?
»
» HMorHT,
» Drs Cooley & Hitzig are dipping the plucked hairs in the aCell
» product(extra-cellular matrix) before planting them in the recipient area,
» Dr Cooley is claiming 50-75% success for this when following his current
» protocol.

This I know but Ahab kept talking about the plucked follicle site not being able to grow back, that is not true, they always grow back, no?

26

As you said, until this is tested scientifically, using control groups or control zones of scalp, exactly the way Dr. Cole has described, and the way I also described, before all the ignorant (AND I DO MEAN IGNORANT AS IN IDIOTIC) hataz here jumped on my a$$ for talkin’ the truth, IT DOESN’T MEAN SQUAT.

Dr. Cole dropped some science here. It’s not sour grapes. It’s straight-up science, people.

I AM NOT DISSING Drs. Cooley and Hitzig. I think they are sincere, they mean well, they are enthusiastic, and they have stuck their necks out to test out this product. BUT THEIR TESTS HAVE NOT BEEN REAL SCIENTIFIC TESTS SO FAR. Their presentations have been geared towards the general public, and potential HT patients, NOT towards the scientific community or their fellow doctors.

I AM SURE that Drs. Cooley and Hitzig (plus Spencer Kobren, who is now Dr. Hitzig’s friend and cheering him on but, I believe, was once SUED by Dr. Hitzig for claims made on The Bald Truth radio show, and was forced to take down all his archived shows from his website), will be cautious about making over-eager claims of cures, and commit themselves to rigorous, controlled scientific tests of plucking, autocloning, and ACell.

WE NEED SCIENTIFIC TESTING OF ACELL TO MEASURE ITS REAL EFFICACY!

I’ll be the first in line if it’s shown to be really useful, especially if it can induce autocloning of hair follicles, BUT THAT HAS NOT BEEN PROVEN AT ALL SO FAR… far from it. The “testing” (or whatever it was) by Drs. Cooley and Hitzig was VERY VERY FAR from rigorous scientific testing, which is what we actually need to know ANYTHING. It didn’t even come close. It’s ONLY anectodal, and as Dr. Cole said, even the lighting and everything else about those demonstrations was poor, not conducive to an accurate assessment or evaluation, and had the potential to be highly misleading.

I realize that Dr. Cooley labeled his tests as “preliminary” in one presentation – BUT THIS IS ALL THE MORE REASON FOR PEOPLE NOT TO GET TOO EXCITED.

And yet Kobren is touting autocloning as an “amazing” development, a possible “cure”…

THERE IS NO PROOF, PEOPLE!!!

27

Dr. Cole dropped some science here. It’s not sour grapes. It’s straight-up science, people.

No, it isn’t, I have never been anti-Cole but some of the things he said were clearly meant to attack Dr Cooley and there was next to no ‘science’ in there from Dr Cole either. I appreciate that all this talk of Autocloning is bad for his business but that is no reason to respond in the way that he has.
It DOES smack of sour grapes.

BTW, why are you even here roger_that, you have this HUGE ‘news’ that you are going to release so why are you even bothering with this ???

28

I agree that Dr. Cole used an unusually blunt style in his review of Dr. Cooley’s and Dr. Hitzig’s work. Some would definitely call his tone rude, in parts. (I attribute it more to the probable fact that Dr. Cole is a no-nonsense scientist-type…this can have drawbacks, though, because tact is sometimes as important as science.)

I would probably not have used that particular tone, particularly when addressing (directly or indirectly) a colleague. It isn’t likely to win him any friends in the medical community.

But I would caution people to separate Dr. Cole’s tone, from the content of his analysis.

When I carefully examine exactly what he said, his clear, methodical, and logical breakdown of where the Cooley/Hitzig tests were lacking, I think he did a brilliant analysis.

It’s only those who have SLOPPY, LAZY MINDS (I’m talking about many the members of this forum, NOT the doctors who did the tests) and want to continue to live in ignorance about the world surrounding them, who would dismiss Dr. Cole’s analysis as deficient or malicious.

I want to just add that I have watched the videos by Drs. Cooley and Hitzig, and I think they are sincere, and really want to help their patients. I think I’m a pretty good judge of human behavior and character, and these two doctors don’t come across as the stereotypical greedy charlatans. I can hear in their voices that they are basically good docs.

However, their “research” or “testing” thus far is scientifically lacking, and I think has to be bolstered and validated. I think if they are going to go this far and present these findings as potentially revolutionary, they have a responsibility to do real, scientifically rigorous and valid comparative testing with control patietns or control scalp areas.

There is simply no way in heaven or hell that I’d visit either of these two docs offices to get any of the procedures they demonstrated… plucking, autocloning, ACell, whatever, and shell out my hard-earned money for any of it, without much more clear and convincing evidence, with real scientific testing done in a reproducible, bonafide way.

I am also NOT dismissing ACell completely; I do think it might have some benefit, in certain cases, particularly in wound healing – which by the way, was precisely what it was designed to do.

Norhting more, nothing less.

Contrary to what many people here think, I’m not saying I’m 100% certain that ACell is useless in helping to improve HT results or even perhaps induce autocloning to a certain extent (but I agree with Dr. Cole, the chances of that are remote.)

What I am saying here is that there’s a lot of overly-enthusiastic people around who just want to jump on the latest exciting bandwagon, and have precisely NO IDEA what constitutes a real, valid, scientifically-rigorous clinical trial or medical test.

I know that Drs. Cooley and Hitzig really DO know what a real, valid, scientifically-rigorous clinical trial or experiment is; I’m just waiting for them to do one.

So far, there is just about ZERO proof of any of this stuff.

» Dr. Cole dropped some science here. It’s not sour grapes. It’s
» straight-up science, people.
»
» No, it isn’t, I have never been anti-Cole but some of the things he said
» were clearly meant to attack Dr Cooley and there was next to no ‘science’
» in there from Dr Cole either. I appreciate that all this talk of
» Autocloning is bad for his business but that is no reason to respond in the
» way that he has.
» It DOES smack of sour grapes.
»
» BTW, why are you even here roger_that, you have this HUGE ‘news’
» that you are going to release so why are you even bothering with this ???

29

Have you maybe considered that there aren’t very many slick bald men willing to allow someone implant patches of hair onto their head (which would look very bizarre in public)? Unless you’re willing to pay money for test cases you’re not going to have many takers willing to walk down the street looking like a freak show.

This is where being a large company conducting clinical trials is different from one transplant doctor.

What you’re getting now is what you’re going to get … people who are willing to have a transplant and maybe will allow Cooley to throw in some plucked grafts in areas where it’s not too obvious.

Since we are sticking to the facts – here’s another one – Cole’s office is a mere 1 1/2 hour drive from Cooley.

You think he’s doing backflips that a rival transplant surgeon beat him to the punch on this? If this takes off for Cooley who will likely feel the pinch?

If Cooley’s approach doesn’t work, that will be borne out pretty quickly and he doesn’t owe anyone anything. Accept that and move on, if you can’t deal with that, then stick with Propecia and Rogaine.

Has Cole even tried to autoclone even one single hair? The answer is no. So everything he’s talking about on that is basically speculation (not science) on his end. He tried Acell in a different way for basically a couple of months and then gave up. Cooley has been working with it for 1 1/2 years now, Hitzig even longer.

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» <spam - edited>

32

I find Dr. Coles analysis highly suspicious.

First of all Gary hitizig said that with beard hairs alone, he consistently had less than 10% success rate. Also he mentioned that without acell body hairs and scalp hairs would not work or would have an extremely low rate of success.

I dont see how a mere “improvement in technique” will give you from <10% success rate in beard hairs let alone scalp hairs to 75% success rate with scalp hairs. The Acell is clearly doing something.

33

This was posted by someone on another network, but this echos my sentiments on this procedure and why it will never really come to fruition or at least be a cure for a NW6 before the biotechies.

"the only problem I can see with this approach is the fact that there’s really no such thing as an area of the scalp that will always have strong follicles, in other words the donor area,
men who get mpb on top will most likely find that the hair at the sides and back will also thin out to some degree as we get older, so even if this method works then we could end up with a head full of extremely thin hair and $60,000 bucks down on the deal,

as for treatments that make use of stem cells to propagate new strong follicles, personally I think this surgical hair splitting idea is on the crude and expensive side, when other treatments are being developed that require no surgery, but rather our understanding and development of stem cell science, whether it’s Aderans or HSC etc that get the best results first, I think that’s where the future lies"

34

the only problem I can see with this approach is the fact that there’s really no such thing as an area of the scalp that will always have strong follicles, in other words the donor area,
men who get mpb on top will most likely find that the hair at the sides and back will also thin out to some degree as we get older, so even if this method works then we could end up with a head full of extremely thin hair and $60,000 bucks down on the deal

Well MPB, I am just such a person, I am on the extreme end of hair loss with early aggressive loss and now partial miniaturisation in the donor area, BUT in the sweet spot of the donor area (at least a few thousand) I still have good grafts - I don’t think this problem is as bad as you are imagining it to be.

This of course doesn’t take account of the possibility of beard grafts (admittedly much inferior to scalp grafts), where there is no resource issue.

as for treatments that make use of stem cells to propagate new strong follicles, personally I think this surgical hair splitting idea is on the crude and expensive side, when other treatments are being developed that require no surgery, but rather our understanding and development of stem cell science, whether it’s Aderans or HSC etc that get the best results first, I think that’s where the future lies

You seem to be referring to Gho’s partial transection procedure, not Autocloning. With Autocloning there is no surgical procedure to extract the grafts, they are just using plucked hairs.
I also think this procedure has big short/medium term advantages over Aderans or HSC etc :-
(a) No further FDA approval required.
(b) Most of the work is done by the body - and the body generally does good work. I think this dramatically decreases the chances of tumours and other such bad side effects as there is little being done by man.

I do think we have to be cautious because there is a lot we still don’t know, but personally I believe it is at least probable that this is a breakthrough - how big a breakthrough we just don’t know yet.

35

» Contrary to what many people here think, I’m not saying I’m 100% certain
» that ACell is useless in helping to improve HT results or even perhaps
» induce autocloning to a certain extent (but I agree with Dr. Cole, the
» chances of that are remote.)

» So far, there is just about ZERO proof of any of this stuff.

How is there zero proof? What about the biopsy taken by Cooley that shows the entire intact follicle with all surrounding structure, or the fact that when hitzig was trying with plucked hairs with no Acell less than 10% of the transferred hairs survived in the recipient to what now is claimed to be up to a 75% success rate and raising with procedural changes? I’m confused to how you can say there is zero proof? I also find what Dr. Cole wrote to be extremely juvenile and disrespectful to attack a collegue and another professional in the same field in that manner. If you disagree with somebody elses research, approach it in a mature manner like a professional should, not with a hostile and attacking tone.

36

» » Contrary to what many people here think, I’m not saying I’m 100% certain
» » that ACell is useless in helping to improve HT results or even perhaps
» » induce autocloning to a certain extent (but I agree with Dr. Cole, the
» » chances of that are remote.)
»
» » So far, there is just about ZERO proof of any of this stuff.
»
» How is there zero proof? What about the biopsy taken by Cooley that shows
» the entire intact follicle with all surrounding structure, or the fact that
» when hitzig was trying with plucked hairs with no Acell less than 10% of
» the transferred hairs survived in the recipient to what now is claimed to
» be up to a 75% success rate and raising with procedural changes? I’m
» confused to how you can say there is zero proof? I also find what Dr. Cole
» wrote to be extremely juvenile and disrespectful to attack a collegue and
» another professional in the same field in that manner. If you disagree
» with somebody elses research, approach it in a mature manner like a
» professional should, not with a hostile and attacking tone.

Rather than contribute to this advancement, Dr. Cole appears to be trying to marginalize it so as to preserve the relevance of his “CIT” (aka reguar FUE) sales.

37

» Rather than contribute to this advancement, Dr. Cole appears to be trying
» to marginalize it so as to preserve the relevance of his “CIT” (aka reguar
» FUE) sales.

I actually don’t mind at all if Dr. Cole wants to engage another doctor in a respectful and sophisticated manner rather than sounding disrespectful and hostile. It’s about being a professional, if you are going to make claims around emerging research make sure you have sources for your information and your argument as well. From what I understand he is much newer to Acell than Cooley is and didn’t he just have a patient that he used Acell, PRP and needling on and is showing regrowth? It sounds like he is more interested in Acell than he makes it out to be in his notes attacking Cooley. Why would you even try needling and different combinations hoping for more hair growth if you didn’t believe the product had potential?

If you write a constructive counter argument with better proof and reasoning that doesn’t sound like you’re disgruntled about a fellow collegue not only do you sound more professional but you sound more mature and educated. Cole seems to be very respected as a surgeon but he needs to learn how to be a bit more aware about how he writes. On top of that, Rassman is kind of similar to Cole in the sense that he has a tendancy to be very blunt and a bit hostile in his reviews of other doctors and research and has finally (I’m glad to say) has joined the research on Acell because he saw potential in Cooley’s presentation. I think Cole should take the time to conduct more research before making counterarguments as Rassman is doing.

38

I think Cole should take the time to conduct more research before making counterarguments as Rassman is doing.

I agree GoGiants1, it would be good if Dr Cole joined the group of doctors experimenting with aCell, not only can HT doctors like him accelerate the development process but he will have a lot stronger position from which to highlight any limitations he actually finds with Autocloning.

39

» He has shown that plucked hairs often result in a finer hair diameter
» with ACell treatment

Might it be possible that if the plucked hairs are forming new follicles, that those new follicles are behaving like the new follicles on the head of a baby?

When an baby’s new follicles first begin go grow hair–the hair on the baby’s head is fine too, but grows more robust as the child ages.

Could be the same with the plucked hair procedure–could be. Time will tell.

» I have been slow to release my findings simply because it is too early and
» I do not want to stimulate irrational exuberance.

Nor stimulate irrational dispair.

40

I understand why Dr. Cole’s response might come across as ‘sour grapes’ but the tone he uses is honestly just the usual blunt manner in which he speaks. Similarly, Dr. Cole has no reason to dispute Cooley’s findings out of a sense of competition since the two physicians perform completely different procedures (CIT/FUE exclusively vs. strip). Dr. Cooley and Dr. Cole are both big name, reputable doctors and certainly neither is hurting for patients.

Dr. Cole believes that ACell has its applications but simply does not believe that hair plucking is going to be the answer to so many patients’ prayers.
He has an abundance of experience working with small grafts with little tissue (from CIT/FUE procedures) and understands what will and will not grow. The issue is not so much whether the follicles will grow when plucked as there will be some yield – maybe 50-60% - even without the use of ACell. However, the hair that does grow will be finer because there is less tissue, coverage will be poorer, and there is no telling how many of the plucked hairs will actually be viable or how much of the hair will grow. Most importantly, any regrowth in the donor area is not well documented and, from Dr. Cole’s perspective, highly unlikely. When you remove almost all of the formative tissue around a follicle, the probability of re-growth is negligible.

Dr. Cole intentions certainly weren’t to bash Cooley for being a pioneer and trying to advance the field (because Dr. Cole is a big advocate of just that, being among the first and most committed to performing FUE and BHT). He simply believes that these findings have been over-hyped, that they may be misleading to patients, and that this is not the breakthrough that so many have been waiting for.