Follica Trials Beginning Now: Follow the Link

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
1

Here’s the link:
http://harvardskinstudies.org/alopecia001.asp

I received this link from Follica, Inc., so it definitely is the real deal. However, the website says the trial will “not treat baldness.” WTF?!?

All the best,
BB

P.S. Should I do it??
P.P.S. Anyone else interested in doing it?

2

» I received this link from Follica, Inc., so it definitely is the real
» deal. However, the website says the trial will “not treat baldness.”
» WTF?!?

I guess they mean you aren’t treating your hair loss ( propecia, minox, … ) while the trial is being done.

3

» I received this link from Follica, Inc., so it definitely is the real
» deal. However, the website says the trial will “not treat baldness.”
» WTF?!?

Probably like Intercytex, they won’t be applying the compound to the entire scalp to treat baldness, but only checking for efficacy by applying it to a smaller area. Since they mention at least 1-inch bald spot, i’m guessing they’d only be doing first-trials on a 1-inch area.

4

» Here’s the link:
» http://harvardskinstudies.org/alopecia001.asp
»
» I received this link from Follica, Inc., so it definitely is the real
» deal. However, the website says the trial will “not treat baldness.”
» WTF?!?
»
» All the best,
» BB
»
» P.S. Should I do it??
» P.P.S. Anyone else interested in doing it?

Yeah I think they mean you should not treat baldness during their experiment. I sent an e-mail to them today and basically got an automated response:

Thanks for your interest in Follica.

Our publically shared information can be found on our website. We are
committed to driving this technology forward and are enthusiastic about
the potential. With that said, developing a new treatment takes time and
we appreciate your patience as we progress in a diligent manner.

Your support is very important to us and encourages us to move forward
as quickly as possible.

5

This is great news! That they start means that this stuf has serious potential! But unfortunately they haven’t started yet, so it will take some more time to get this cure. Time is precious, but better late then never.

6

» but better late then never.

thats a good sentence to sum up the sense of this forum.

7

» Here’s the link:
» http://harvardskinstudies.org/alopecia001.asp
»
» I received this link from Follica, Inc., so it definitely is the real
» deal. However, the website says the trial will “not treat baldness.”
» WTF?!?
»
» All the best,
» BB
»
» P.S. Should I do it??
» P.P.S. Anyone else interested in doing it?

“will not treat baldness” is a requirement to join the test group

8

I called the number listed on that page and following are the key points:

  1. It IS being done by Follica.
  2. Duration is 60 days.
  3. They will only dermabrade small area on your scalp, They Won’t adminster any compounds on your scalp.
  4. They will take two really small (4mm) biopsies to observe new regrowth. She specially noted that the new growth will not necessarily be visible to human eye.
  5. She also mentioned some procedure that will look into your scalp for possible scarring and stuff.
  6. They won’t pay travel expenses, so people in boston area are better suited for this.
  7. And obviously, you can’t be on propecia, rogaine etc etc.
9

» I called the number listed on that page and following are the key points:
»
» 1) It IS being done by Follica.
» 2) Duration is 60 days.
» 3) They will only dermabrade small area on your scalp, They Won’t
» adminster any compounds on your scalp.
» 4) They will take two really small (4mm) biopsies to observe new regrowth.
» She specially noted that the new growth will not necessarily be visible to
» human eye.
» 5) She also mentioned some procedure that will look into your scalp for
» possible scarring and stuff.
» 6) They won’t pay travel expenses, so people in boston area are better
» suited for this.
» 7) And obviously, you can’t be on propecia, rogaine etc etc.

Thanks for your effort.

But point 3 is strange. What is the sense of this?? The whole point is the miracle compound in combination with the scalp dermabration, not the injury of the scalp by itself. We all can do that, we don’t need a 60 day trial for that. Point 3 is definately strange and puts no value to all of this.

10

Probably they are doing a very first stage , to see the safety results of the dermoabration, for example to see if several dermabration are performed could result in tumour or cancer. who knows !!!

» Thanks for your effort.
»
» But point 3 is strange. What is the sense of this?? The whole point is the
» miracle compound in combination with the scalp dermabration, not the injury
» of the scalp by itself. We all can do that, we don’t need a 60 day trial
» for that. Point 3 is definately strange and puts no value to all of this.

11

» » but better late then never.
»
» thats a good sentence to sum up the sense of this forum.

here’s another one : Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end.

12

It seems we are really far away, however, that’s right ? the first data results are expect to become avaiable in the first half of 2009 do you think guys ? or later maybe…

13

» But point 3 is strange. What is the sense of this?? The whole point is the
» miracle compound in combination with the scalp dermabration, not the injury
» of the scalp by itself. We all can do that, we don’t need a 60 day trial
» for that. Point 3 is definately strange and puts no value to all of this.

She specifically mentioned scalp scarring, so I guess at the first stage they are just trying to learn more about the bald scalp - which I think is essential for a cure!

on the bright side, it’s only 60 days long and they are referring to it as a Research Study - so it’s not really a trial. I think they are using this as a quick way to get data on scalp health and maybe to check for fibrosis, blood flow etc etc, so they can formulate their first trial better.

14

I can save them the time. It DOES work because I am certain I have hair growing where before there were none. However, at the moment, I do not have any cosmetic significance but I’m only on Day 20. Certain light shows up little black dots on close scrutiny (hate to sound like ‘Black Dot Ken’) but these are not large enough to constitute a hair shadow as yet. Maybe they never will be but I’m convinced enough to try again soon with tannic acid (low concentration).
The question is not whether it works but whether it is cosmetically beneficial.

15

» I can save them the time. It DOES work because I am certain I have hair
» growing where before there were none. However, at the moment, I do not have
» any cosmetic significance but I’m only on Day 20. Certain light shows up
» little black dots on close scrutiny (hate to sound like ‘Black Dot Ken’)
» but these are not large enough to constitute a hair shadow as yet. Maybe
» they never will be but I’m convinced enough to try again soon with tannic
» acid (low concentration).
» The question is not whether it works but whether it is cosmetically
» beneficial.

Good sh!t Baccy, I believe you. 20 days is still way too early to tell how terminal those hairs will end up. My fingers are crossed for you – best of luck.

16

» The question is not whether it works but whether it is cosmetically
» beneficial.

it’s the same thing.

17

» » The question is not whether it works but whether it is cosmetically
» » beneficial.
»
» it’s the same thing.

There ARE different levels of cosmetically acceptable. As I’ve stressed in the past, one man’s baldness is another man’s hirsuteness. I don’t want to look like Cousin It. I want what probably most of you guys would call bald.
Low density, short cropped hair just to take the edge off a large expanse of bald scalp. I don’t want a hairline that doubles as a moustache. It would look silly at my age and undermine my masculinity.

18

This sounds like the equivalent of a phase#1 test.

“Let’s do one round this way first, just to make sure we’re not gonna kill anybody before we go any farther.”

19

The word “HARVARD” should mean a lot to all of you.

That means this trial is serious business and the company is certainly no joke.

Only treating a small bald spot w/out any other adjuvants is a great way to see what pathways are activated in vivo with a human being in response to abrasion and if hair follicle placodes, cells, proto hairs start development without any chemical help at all.

Remember in Experiment 7 of the Patent, the one they were able to replicate, they simply abraded human skin grafted to a SCID mouse and were able to get hair germs by day 7. That was donor area skin though, obtained from strip-scar hair transplant clinics that would have been thrown away. This is bald MPB scalp----that sometimes has some micro-scarring from micro-inflammation due to the MPB immunological events over many years.

If they find pathway x or y is initiated in vivo in response to abrasion, CO2 lasers, soundwaves, chemical peels or whatever, they might be able to take away some of the adjuvants they feel are necessary to coax the epidermal stem cells to build new follicles------or they may find they need to add some other stimulatory compounds (fiberblast growth factor or topical beta catenin or whatever). This will be an excellent way to determine what exactly happens in the skin of live people in response to abrasion in MPB-scalp.

The fact that this is being done at Harvard after being researched at Penn should be very encouraging to everyone here.

BTW-------There are no ‘magic compounds’. If you read the patent, Follica tells you EXACTLY what they are considering using as adjuvants in a topical forumulation…EGF-antagonists, potassium channel openiers, Nitric Oxide agonists, retinoids, perhpaps immunosuppressants (they will no doubt be looking for particular immuno markers in skin in response to the wounding), anti-microbials, and anti-inflammatories, and possibly fiberblast growth factors like FGF7, and maybe beta catenin and wnt-protiens or wnt-mimetics like LiCl.
These experiments are a great way to see if some of those can be shed or another thing or two has to be added for EDIHN hairs to grow on MPB scalp as opposed to donor-area scalp etc.

The ball is rolling though…We had to wait three years for ICX to go from phase one to phase two while rolling our fingers.

20

Thanks for the information.

My sense is that they are trying to guage how scalps will react to abrasion. This will give them info on healing time (to help them define a timeline for when a typical person should start applying the drugs), as well as info on any possible side-effects (scarring, infection, etc.) Also, by just doing abrasion alone with the bopsies, they will eventually know how much the drugs contribute to the overall result (i.e., you compare hair counts from abrasion alone to abrasion + drugs.)