New article (March 2014)

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
21

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by superhl[/postedby]
"they must figure out how to maintain and multiply human dermal papillae cells, a finding that has so far evaded them."
Multiplying papillae is the issue, not the FDA; however, we Americans are sick of the power the FDA has incumbered. Taking 10 to 15 years and a billion dollars to get something that would benefits millions of people is ludicrous. Currently there are very promising drugs that have not been approved but in clinical trials have save the lives of people with leukemia. It is time for change![/quote]

That’s why we shouldn’t give up on Nigam just yet, maybe this is something that he can do one day.

22

you are discussing something that could possibly leave in 10 years?? very crazy…or desperate.

23

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by baldlatino34[/postedby]
you are discussing something that could possibly leave in 10 years?? very crazy…or desperate.[/quote]

Don’t you mean “could possibly arrive in 10 years”?

This is one of the reasons I’m so frustrated with this forum. I don’t mean the 10 years part, I mean the “what happened to proper English?” part.

24

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by superhl[/postedby]
“they must figure out how to maintain and multiply human dermal papillae cells, a finding that has so far evaded them.”
Multiplying papillae is the issue, not the FDA; however, we Americans are sick of the power the FDA has incumbered. Taking 10 to 15 years and a billion dollars to get something that would benefits millions of people is ludicrous. Currently there are very promising drugs that have not been approved but in clinical trials have save the lives of people with leukemia. It is time for change!

[postedby]Originally Posted by HMorHT[/postedby]

That’s why we shouldn’t give up on Nigam just yet, maybe this is something that he can do one day.[/quote]

I am no expert here but my interpretation of the article is that it requires both epithelial stem cells and DP cells. See they mentioned:

“Researchers have successfully isolated and characterized epithelial stem cells from a hair follicle, but have been unable to multiply them, a high hurdle in the battle against hair loss.In search of a solution for several years, Xu and colleagues have made a breakthrough. His research team, … has found a method to amplify and make scalable amounts of epithelial stem cells.”

According to the article, Xu knows how to multiply epithelial stem cells already, that’s the good news. The other part of the equation is DP cells. However, if Xu already holds a patent on how to multiply epithelial stem cells, then even if Dr. Nigam or another Indian doctor figures out how to multiply DP cells, he will still need to work with Xu’s patent in order to come up with an effective treatment.

So the question is whether Xu is willing to set up clinics in India in order to bypass FDA, personally I think it is highly unlikely Xu will do that.

25

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by baldlatino34[/postedby]
you are discussing something that could possibly leave in 10 years?? very crazy…or desperate.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

Don’t you mean “could possibly arrive in 10 years”?

This is one of the reasons I’m so frustrated with this forum. I don’t mean the 10 years part, I mean the “what happened to proper English?” part.[/quote]

you never seemed to mind when nigam does it, just pretend u are reading
one of nigam s posts and you will be fine :slight_smile:

26

You understood what I meant.:wink: discuss something that might get out in 10 years.

27

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by baldlatino34[/postedby]
You understood what I meant.:wink: discuss something that might get out in 10 years.[/quote]

I did understand what you meant, but it kind of takes a mental leap to get there from what you wrote.

“Leave” does mean (sort of) “to go out”, but it has the connotation, “to go away” (as in “irse” in Spanish). From the perspective of the person who’s still hanging around (like us), it means something like “to disappear”. So, if this “cure” is going to “leave in 10 years” that means not only is it going to come out, it’s going to disappear so we can never use it.

“Arrive” or “appear” are probably the best way to say it.

My point is that somewhere around 5-6 years or so on this forum (I’ve been following it for longer), there was a sudden flood of people posting on here for whom English is not their first language, and in many cases, it is people who can barely speak and write in English at all.

Dr. Nigam is a different case, his English is heavily influenced by Indian-English vernacular and terms like “lakh” that may sound unusual to a non-Hindi speaker, but his English is generally understandable. He makes his point. To his credit, he is also very well-versed in the latest technology and research, he knows all the terminology and scientific nomenclature, so for me his posts were informative and worthwhile to read. And if he didn’t understand something at first, he would always go back and catch up on his homework.

I guess that’s all over now because of the horrible way he was treated here, but I digress.

However it seems there are a number of people now posting on here who really don’t speak English at all. Some of them seem to be using programs like Google Translate. Those programs rarely translate quotations into smoothly readable form because they can’t pick up on context.

28

Nigam’s broken English is frightening but even more frightening is Roger’s double standard.

29

[quote]
[postedby]Originally Posted by Lucky[/postedby]

I am no expert here but my interpretation of the article is that it requires both epithelial stem cells and DP cells. See they mentioned:

“Researchers have successfully isolated and characterized epithelial stem cells from a hair follicle, but have been unable to multiply them, a high hurdle in the battle against hair loss.In search of a solution for several years, Xu and colleagues have made a breakthrough. His research team, … has found a method to amplify and make scalable amounts of epithelial stem cells.”

According to the article, Xu knows how to multiply epithelial stem cells already, that’s the good news. The other part of the equation is DP cells. However, if Xu already holds a patent on how to multiply epithelial stem cells, then even if Dr. Nigam or another Indian doctor figures out how to multiply DP cells, he will still need to work with Xu’s patent in order to come up with an effective treatment.

So the question is whether Xu is willing to set up clinics in India in order to bypass FDA, personally I think it is highly unlikely Xu will do that.[/quote]

Inventorship does not always mean ownership. There is a good chance ownership of Xu’s discovery belongs to University of Pennsylvania.

30

In any event, ownership of a patent by Xu or UPenn does not necessarily mean that someone, somewhere in the world will not be able infringe the patent, legally or not.

I don’t know what the law in India, but at least for medical procedures in the United States, even if there is a valid patent, another doctor can still use the medical procedure on patients, without a license from the inventor, and would win any lawsuit against him for patent infringement. That has been the law in the US since 1997, and it’s also the law in a number of other countries.

Whether or not this discovery by Dr. Xu is would be considered a “medical procedure”, I don’t know.

31

Its probably a matter of time before we see cutting edge stuff appearing outside Europe/USA first. It hasn’t been happening up to now but things used to be much more chemically & physically oriented instead of the increasingly biological treatments being worked on now. It leads to making better educated guesses about the safety.

I see no reason why the first real MPB treatment couldn’t be the first example of something HUGE happening overseas first. The magazines & news outlets would comment on how its an example of the changing of the times, etc. The demand for a real MPB treatment is big enough, which is what it would take to make it happen.

As for Nigam, most of us have our opinions and they aren’t going to change with more bickering on a thread like this. Let it be.

32

The linked study is relevant to growing follices in vitro, which requires beginning with both dermal and epithelial cells. This could provide an elegant cure.

However, you don’t need to create both cell types to get a cure. If you have an unlimited amount of inductive dermal cells, you can simply pack them into small incisions in the skin and grow out your teenage hairdo. This is because the dermal cells are fully capable of coaxing existing epithelial cells to grow down in the skin and form new hair follicles. The main reason it can’t be currently done is because slit packing is extremely wasteful and requires too many dermal cells per follicle grown.

For this reason, Aderans made several attempts at coming up with a more targeted way of placing the cells at the exact location in the skin to create new follicles. Unfortunately, they failed to find a viable way of doing this given the limited number of dermal cells available by current processes.

Had Aderans placed more emphasis up front on cDNA microarray analysis of cells cultured with various signaling molecules, it would have had a better chance at success than it did initially placing so much emphasis on phase II “shot in the dark” trials.

The trials burned up a lot of time and money, which could have been better spent developing culture mediums in parallel and observing their affect on the genetic expression of cells.

33

[quote]I am no expert here but my interpretation of the article is that it requires both epithelial stem cells and DP cells. See they mentioned:

[postedby]Originally Posted by James Bond[/postedby]

The linked study is relevant to growing follices in vitro, which requires beginning with both dermal and epithelial cells. This could provide an elegant cure.

However, you don’t need to create both cell types to get a cure. If you have an unlimited amount of inductive dermal cells, you can simply pack them into small incisions in the skin and grow out your teenage hairdo. This is because the dermal cells are fully capable of coaxing existing epithelial cells to grow down in the skin and form new hair follicles. The main reason it can’t be currently done is because slit packing is extremely wasteful and requires too many dermal cells per follicle grown.

For this reason, Aderans made several attempts at coming up with a more targeted way of placing the cells at the exact location in the skin to create new follicles. Unfortunately, they failed to find a viable way of doing this given the limited number of dermal cells available by current processes.

Had Aderans placed more emphasis up front on cDNA microarray analysis of cells cultured with various signaling molecules, it would have had a better chance at success than it did initially placing so much emphasis on phase II “shot in the dark” trials.

The trials burned up a lot of time and money, which could have been better spent developing culture mediums in parallel and observing their affect on the genetic expression of cells.[/quote]

Aderans seemed to fall into the typical trap for MPB treatment efforts. They see a way to poke up a little bit of loss prevention/regrowth and they run with it. They weren’t just coming up with another androgen topical but the same principle seemed to be in operation at the cellular level.

IMO it has been clear for years that a decent improved viable MPB treatment is not going to be from that path.

34

Not to mention the fact that what you refer to as “dermal cells” (I prefer to call them dermal papilla or DP cells) are only highly inductive if they are not cultured through more than 1-2 passages. Therefore what you describe with the “slit packing” is only a replication of Dr. Jahoda’s original experiment from many years ago with his wife, where his non-cultured DP cells were implanted into her arm.

With non-cultured, highly inductive DP cells, of course you’re going to get hair. But you won’t get that many new follicles, or rather new follicle formation is highly inefficient, because there’s basically about a 1:1 ratio of harvested follicles to new follicles.

So you have to be able to CULTURE the DP cells and multiply millions of them, while somehow preserving their original inductivity, to reach an efficient point. A logical way is to change the cells themselves, i.e., their genetic expression. Aderans never bothered to pursue this angle, either because they didn’t have enough basic knowledge of the idea, or they just didn’t have enough money to keep changing their plans and get FDA approval for each change.

This latest trend is about manipulating the genetics of the DP cells so they express more genes for inductivity, and that’s as a brand new angle that was only pioneered recently in 2013 by Drs. Christiano and Jahoda. Now we’re seeing other researchers attempt this, by actually inserting different genes (or alleles of genes) into the DP cells.

I think it’s very likely that when Aderans saw this “writing on the wall”, from the new Christiano/Jahoda study, and realized they couldn’t easily or cheaply get FDA approval to pursue this path, they decided to cut their losses and call it quits.

35

[quote]This latest trend is about manipulating the genetics of the DP cells so they express more genes for inductivity, and that’s as a brand new angle that was only pioneered recently in 2013 by Drs. Christiano and Jahoda. Now we’re seeing other researchers attempt this, by actually inserting different genes (or alleles of genes) into the DP cells.

I think it’s very likely that when Aderans saw this “writing on the wall”, from the new Christiano/Jahoda study, and realized they couldn’t easily or cheaply get FDA approval to pursue this path, they decided to cut their losses and call it quits.[/quote]

The top brass at Aderans might have taken a hard look at the Christiano/Jahoda work and studied its implications for them. But I think it’s just as likely they killed ARI without even going that far into it. Washenik and friends probably lost sleep over Ch/Ja’s recent findings but it might have been completely over the head of a layman in Aderans management.

ARI was an ongoing money pit and the original goals of the program had already been abandoned years earlier. The new management at Aderans had justification to kill ARI just looking at the existing paper trail alone.

A clinical trial where they can’t prove decent effiacy in (a very prolonged and increasingly desperate) phase#2 . . they’ve got nothing.

36

There isn’t sh&t for research going on in hair loss as there are no researchers
in this field. The few who are trying unconventional approaches like Nigam
are being driven out.

Same monkeys doing the above will then sit around wondering how is it a cure
for MPB has not been discovered even in the 21st century.

I don’t see ANY hope coming down the pipe in the next 10 to 15 years minimum.
From the time you see it announced and proven that a NW6 person has been
turned into a NW2, count 7 to 10 years and that’s when you will have a shot
at getting your hair back. Right now we are lightyears from that.

Where will you be in 10 to 15 and will it still matter. I’m afraid we are yet
another generation who will pass through the sands of time without a cure.

37

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by Freddie555[/postedby]
There isn’t sh&t for research going on in hair loss as there are no researchers
in this field. The few who are trying unconventional approaches like Nigam
are being driven out.

Same monkeys doing the above will then sit around wondering how is it a cure
for MPB has not been discovered even in the 21st century.

I don’t see ANY hope coming down the pipe in the next 10 to 15 years minimum.
From the time you see it announced and proven that a NW6 person has been
turned into a NW2, count 7 to 10 years and that’s when you will have a shot
at getting your hair back. Right now we are lightyears from that.

Where will you be in 10 to 15 and will it still matter. I’m afraid we are yet
another generation who will pass through the sands of time without a cure.[/quote]

Do you know that you and Jarjar are the two most annoying posters here or are the two of you actually the same person? Nobody is interested in reading the same old monkey comments from you over and over again.

38

[quote]

[postedby]Originally Posted by ipod[/postedby]

Do you know that you and Jarjar are the two most annoying posters here or are the two of you actually the same person? Nobody is interested in reading the same old monkey comments from you over and over again.[/quote]

+1

39

I don’t necessarily agree with that, Freddie. With the “7-10 years after discovery” estimate, you have to recall that what you’re talking about is basically the US FDA, and European Union regulatory agencies ONLY, that will impose such huge hurdles.

For much of the remainder of the world, like India, China and most of the Far East (except Japan to some extent), Latin America, and numerous small, independent developing countries, islands and territories around the world, the 7-10 years-for-approval thing doesn’t apply at all… in fact, it would be short-sighted to see it that way.

It’s only going against our own interests if we keep our US and EU based blinders on and discount all the possibilities of new developments being brought to the market and commercialized in some of these low-regulation jurisdictions. We already know this is a totally globalized world economy and semi-conductors and silicon chips are built in Thailand, Malaysia, etc. There is really no connection anymore between the perceived state of development of a country (in Western eyes), and the level of technology you can see there. Global medical tourism to developing countries has boomed in recent years, and it doesn’t only have to be for facelifts, botox, and liposuction, it can just as easily be for cell-based hair regeneration treatment, if such a procedure is discovered.

I think as soon as a reliable, effective cell-based treatment is announced – whatever it is – you’ll start seeing clinics popping up in places like the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc., doctors familiarizing themselves with the technology and offering such a procedure.

I hate to say this, but the bottom line is that those of us who live in places like North America and Western Europe who can afford to go overseas to get the procedure 7-10 years before it’s approved here, will do so, and those of us who can’t afford it, will have to wait. At the end of the day it only boils down to that.

The reason Dr. Nigam interests me so much is not because of what he’s already accomplished, which is nothing spectacular, but what he is obviously preparing himself to do. For that reason alone I think we ought to respect the guy and keep the lines of communication with him open.

40

[quote]Inventorship does not always mean ownership. There is a good chance ownership of Xu’s discovery belongs to University of Pennsylvania.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

In any event, ownership of a patent by Xu or UPenn does not necessarily mean that someone, somewhere in the world will not be able infringe the patent, legally or not.

I don’t know what the law in India, but at least for medical procedures in the United States, even if there is a valid patent, another doctor can still use the medical procedure on patients, without a license from the inventor, and would win any lawsuit against him for patent infringement. That has been the law in the US since 1997, and it’s also the law in a number of other countries.

Whether or not this discovery by Dr. Xu is would be considered a “medical procedure”, I don’t know.[/quote]

Really? This is the first time I’ve heard of this, I think Aderans have several patents under their belt, you are saying other doctors can use their patents freely on patients?