If you look at Dr. Cotsarelis’ comments about the recent UCLA hairgrowth findings in mice, they are all negative…
Interesting that Cotsarelis is “cautioning” us not to expect too much, and not to expect any cures here, when EVERY SINGLE TIME one of his own “discoveries” is reported in the media, it is SPECIFICALLY REPORTED AS BEING A POTENTIAL CURE FOR MALE PATTERNED BALDNESS.
Also, he has totally overlooked the possiblity that hair follicle miniaturization caused by DHT, and hair follicle miniaturization caused by “stress” factors both feed into the same ultimate biochemical pathway to change the stem cells and cause miniaturization of the follicles.
Whatever “stress” means anyway – it could be almost ANYTHING – biochemical stress, toxins, fatigue, lack of sleep, too much physical activitiy, bad nutrition, etc. – Dr. Cotsarelis should know, and he should admit it to us, that scientists use the word “stress” to mean a lot of things, not just “life stress” or “headaches” or “job related” stress which is the common use of the term.
I find it ironic and unsettling that Cotsarelis is so quick to criticize other people’s discoveries, when he ALWAYS contacts the media and touts his own discoveries as potential MPB cures, and makes sure each little incremental discovery of his gets MASSIVE coverage in the media… CNN, BBC, newspapers, etc.
Also, has he never worked with mice himself, in his hairloss experiments? Why is he all of the sudden, out of the blue, implying that work on mice is irrelevant? If it’s irrelevant here, then ALL of the work he’s ever done with mice is irrelevant, and should never have been reported in the media… right?
I don’t think it’s irrelevant. There may be something to this UCLA discovery. On the other hand, there may not be.
But for Dr. Cotsarelis to criticize it so quickly, to me, shows that this is a man who always wants to be seen as the central point in ALL hair loss research today – he has single-handedly elevated himself to the “world’s most foremost expert” on MPB, and the facts just don’t bear that out.
What I see instead, I’m sorry to say, is a guy who loves media attention as long as it’s focused on him, and who also likes to make lots of incremental discoveries at his univeristy lab and then turn around and quickly “monetize” them – selling them for big bucks to private biotech companies, before they are completely proven to work.
To me, Dr. Cotsarelis may be good as a scientist, but his real forte is MARKETING.
At least, that is what Dr. Cotsarelis’ business methodology looks like to me!
