This forum, and the general enthusiasm for HM and hair regeneration, including “outside the box” solutions like Acell and stem cells, has degenerated into a circus of a thousand voices touting a million products and making a zillion claims, none of which are provable, and many of which are suspicious.
I won’t even get into the “new and improved” products being touted by shills and sc#mmers purporting to be normal HairSite posters.
In the main, I am concerned that the triumph of HM will not be as smooth, or as quick, as many had opined, including myself (in previous incarnations and incantations here on HairSite).
It seems that when injected into the scalp, DP cells alone, or in concert with other disparate types of cells DON’T HAVE A NATURAL TENDENCY TO STICK TOGETHER AND COALESCE INTO A HAIR FOLLICLE, FOLKS!!
What they are missing is the complex endocrinologic signalling that comes from all the many cellular secretions which normally bathe these cells during embryologic and fetal development. During the development of the embryo and fetus, there are proto-follicles (originally derived from the epidermis which is originally derived from primitive NERVOUS SYSTEM tissue, believe it or not). These cells, under influence of stem cells and fetal chemical signals, differentiate into epidermal and mesodermal tissues, together which form the hair follicle.
In contrast to what many claim here, and to what many think, the human hair follicle is not just an organ, but a COMPLEX ORGAN, and in fact, histologically, it is in some ways MORE COMPLEX than most independent organs in the body such as the heart.
You see, the hair follicle is essentially a tiny ball of cells of numerous differentiated cell types (influenced by neighbouring stem cells), all aggregated together – and no one really knows exactly how or why these different cells stick together in that functional, germinative “ball”.
The real reason they stick together in a functional mature human hair follicle is because they were told to, long ago, during fetal development, when these different cells were instructed by chemical signals to form an organ.
It’s a COMPLEX ORGAN, people!!! A tiny but very complex organ, with multiple different cell types crammed together in a three-dimensional “puzzle” – with only one potential possible solution in terms of 3-dimensional arrangement to that puzzle that will yield a functioning, cosmetically viable hair follicle!
I think unfortunately, this may be the root of our longstanding troubles (and the bane of the existences of Aderans, Intercytex, Dr. Roland Lauster at the University of Berlin, Dr. Gho, Dr. Cotsarelis, Dr. Christiano, and so many others…)
The problem is that you can put all these cell types together, but they WON’T EASILY ADHERE and form that functional “ball” – the working hair follicle.
When you inject the cells into the scalp, they immediately start dispersing and moving AWAY from each other, because the embryonic and fetal cell signalling mechanisms are not in place, telling them to stick together and form a follicle.
When you use a “scaffold”, like Aderans is doing in some of its work, it might work A LITTLE better … but not much better, because that scaffold is really no substitute for that EXACT SET OF CHEMICAL SIGNALLING INSTRUCTIONS.
When you do complex experiments involving stem cell growth factors and other things like Dr. Costsarelis is doing, you are really still in kindergarten, because alas, you are STILL NOT replicating the embryonic and fetal signals perfectly. So you can’t easily form a follicle.
When you do what Dr. Lauster is doing, sort of shoving different cell types together in some kind of physical template, you are STILL NOT REPLICATING THE EXCEEDINGLY COMPLEX CHEMICAL SIGNALS PRESENT DURING EMBRYONIC AND FETAL DEVELOPMENT that instruct different cells to unite to form a functioning hair follicle.
Therefore, to my mind (and I HATE to be a pessimist), maybe almost any attempt to inject, forcibly shove, or artificially coax these cells together to form the tiny but complex, multifaceted machine that is a functioning human hair follicle (one which will produce viable, cosmetically NORMAL human hairs), will be doomed to failure.
I really DON’T WANT THIS TO BE THE SITUATION, but what if it is???
