Question for Hairtech/Jessica

Hair Transplant
1

You two have been extremely informative.

I light of the “wound healing” razzmatazz coming out of Follica’s,(they have a website you can google, but the link is “too long” to post here), research, what is the protocol for back of the head FUE-healing?

Can the sites merely be left alone to “heal” in the way described by Follica? Has that ever been tried?

Here is one of the (many-geesh! they must have a good PR department) articles about the “wound healing/new follicles formed in mammals” “discovery” by George Costarialis (I think he used to be a transplant surgeon) and Kurt Stenn:

New Hope For Baldness Treatment: Hair Follicles Created For First Time In Mouse Study
Science Daily — Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that hair follicles in adult mice regenerate by re-awakening genes once active only in developing embryos. These findings provide unequivocal evidence for the first time that, like other animals such as newts and salamanders, mammals have the power to regenerate. A better understanding of this process could lead to novel treatments for hair loss, other skin and hair disorders, and wounds.

Growth of regenerated hair follicles over 45 days. Arrows indicate hair shaft. The bulge is the area from which new hair shafts arise. The regenerated follicles possess normal stem cells and function normally by producing a hair shaft and cycling through growth phases. (Credit: George Cotsarelis, MD, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; Nature)Ads by Google Advertise on this site

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“We showed that wound healing triggered an embryonic state in the skin which made it receptive to receiving instructions from wnt proteins,” says senior author George Cotsarelis, MD, Associate Professor of Dermatology. “The wnts are a network of proteins implicated in hair-follicle development.”

Researchers previously believed that adult mammal skin could not regenerate hair follicles. In fact, investigators generally believe that mammals had essentially no true regenerative qualities. (The liver can regenerate large portions, but it is not de novo regeneration; some of the original liver has to remain so that it can regenerate.)

In this study, researchers found that wound healing in a mouse model created an “embryonic window” of opportunity. Dormant embryonic molecular pathways were awakened, sending stem cells to the area of injury. Unexpectedly, the regenerated hair follicles originated from non-hair-follicle stem cells.

“We’ve found that we can influence wound healing with wnts or other proteins that allow the skin to heal in a way that has less scarring and includes all the normal structures of the skin, such as hair follicles and oil glands, rather than just a scar,” explains Cotsarelis.

By introducing more wnt proteins to the wound, the researchers found that they could take advantage of the embryonic genes to promote hair-follicle growth, thus making skin regenerate instead of just repair. Conversely by blocking wnt proteins, they also found that they could stop the production of hair follicles in healed skin.

Increased wnt signaling doubled the number of new hair follicles. This suggests that the embryonic window created by the wound-healing process can be used to manipulate hair-follicle regeneration, leading to novel ways to treat hair loss and hair overgrowth.

These findings go beyond just a possible treatment for male-pattern baldness. If researchers can effectively control hair growth, then they could potentially find cures for people with hair and scalp disorders, such as scarring alopecia where the skin scars, and hair overgrowth.

This research was funded in part by the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskelatal and Skin Disease and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Other co-authors in addition to Cotsarelis are Mayumi Ito, Zaixin Yang, Thomas Andl, Chunhua Cui, Noori Kim, and Sarah E. Millar, all from Penn.

Cotsarelis and Ito are listed as inventors on a patent application related to hair-follicle neogenesis and owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Cotsarelis also serves on the scientific advisory board and has equity in Follica, a start-up company that has licensed the patent from the University of Pennsylvania. Cotsarelis was also a co-founder of Follica.

These findings are published in the May 17 issue of Nature.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine

2

Let me get home to answer you.

3

» Let me get home to answer you.

I might have to wait until tomorrow, but if I have time, I will also answer you after I get home.

4

yes this is the concept that was discussed at length at the Webinar I posted about a couple of weeks ago./ One of the researchers at the University of Pennsylvania discussed up-regulation of WNT in “hair tumors” I know that you Benji want us to put the WNT molecule in FUE sites to see if it stimulates regeneration of hair by re-stimulation of embryonic cells that produce skin and hair within a wound… And I agree this is something to think about. We still need to make sure that WNT by itself when put in a wound will do this.

I remember the lady from U. of PA discussed several pathways utilized within the wounding of the mice that actually had to happen in order to have hair growing… One pathway was called by the acronym sonic roadrunner or something like that. Anyway… is WNT BY ITSELF capable to initiate an embryonic stimulation within FUE sites. That is the big question.

5

»
» I remember the lady from U. of PA discussed several pathways utilized
» within the wounding of the mice that actually had to happen in order to
» have hair growing… One pathway was called by the acronym sonic
» roadrunner or something like that.

Sonic Hedghog

Anyway… is WNT BY ITSELF capable to
» initiate an embryonic stimulation within FUE sites. That is the big
» question.

Would you risk upregulating a cancer marker (WNT) on your head???

6

Hairtech,

I’d wondered whether or not the application of Wnt protiens may or may not be completely necessary at all to be honest. It was noted fifty years ago that wounds on rabbits produced hairs, and science probably didn’t even know about wnt-protiens back then.

In one of the articles I’d read about follica, it noted that the epilitheal cells (or whatever cells that drive this), utilize long-dormant signalling pathways in the skin to get a hair follicle made at the center of these wounds.

Thats why I asked about the “healing protocol” various doctors were using “back there”. I was wondering if any of the doctors were merely letting the FUE holes “just heal alone” without applying anything to them, and whether if one could resist using a pillow or even shampoo on them for several days (sleeping upright with the neck braced) if a similar wound-healing scenario could be replicated in a human being.

It may all be for not, but it would be interesting if just a few FUE sites (almost perversley the larger the better) could be “allowed” to heal this way to see if anything happened. The reason I bring it up amongst transplant professionals is that Follica is that has only done this in mice, and more importantly Follica will have no incentive to test this without some proprietary topical they formulate out of whatever…I’d like to see if humans would heal like the rabbits did?

Ive noted over the years that some folks in car accidents have strangely good hair regrwowth (or so its been claimed on the net) and that once-in-a-while Ive come across somebody claiming good results with accupuncture which I heretofore dismissed as “flukes” or outright fabrications. When I read about Follica, I reconsidered. I have complete faith that Stenn and Costarialis are telling the truth about wound healing/hair in mice, but dont know if this will translate in humans at all, even if we did everything they advise. I been looking into hair for a few years now, and have noted that if you are a mouse, minoxidil, various proanthocyandin oligomers, and copper peptides all seem to be a cure for your average rodent’s baldness, but unfortunately not for us.

This latest thing, ACELL, and HM…would seem the only ways I could think of for science to “come up with” a way to make a hair out of thin air. I think any kind of gene therapy for hair is going to be many decades out there in the future if ever at all. So in a way, one of these things will either be it, or they just wont happen IMO. :lookaround:

7

If there was proof that WNT proteins did not cause a transform of normal cells into cells that lost contact inhibition(cancer) than I would try the stuff myself and report it.

And Marco… yes it was sonic hedgehog… the acronym. Thanks for the correction!:slight_smile:

8

Hairtech,

I was suggesting the allowance of donor holes to heal naturally with no intervention whatsoever----and keeping pillows and shampoo off of them for a good period also to simulate the healing in rabbit fur that was observed fifty years ago that resulted in new hair where there was none.

It could be that only normal wnt signalling is enough? If you re-read what I suggested above, the crux was that extra wnt protiens may not be necessary if the healing is managed in such a way as to allow it to happen with no surface contact, chemicals whatsoever------and was wondering what you guys thought of it.

9

Good theory and I wonder out of all of the FUE cases there has to be a percentage that did not have intervention and I wonder what happened to those patient’s donor area.

10

» Good theory and I wonder out of all of the FUE cases there has to be a
» percentage that did not have intervention and I wonder what happened to
» those patient’s donor area.

Thats the thing…guys go home (or to a hotel room) and go get some sleep after a big day of surgery, resting right on the holes causing them to heal, etc. I was wondering, if like the backs of the rabbits, if a guy put a neck cushion on his neck and slept upright for a week, and didn’t wash the back of his head for a week, whether anything could get started back there…

Maybe not of course, people aren’t rabbits, but heck its worth a try for one guy. I really dont see how Follica could help men if the donor area follicles aren’t regenerated in this way as I’d tend to think that frontal wounds would just result in more MPB-prone hair. I’d love to be wrong about that, but its my opinion. I feel the same way about ACELL. It would have to be used in conjuntion with a FUE transplant if its to help MPB-folks at all.

Thanks for your interest in it though…:slight_smile:

11

Well you I am interested in this. People aren’t rabbits… Hair cycles are different… so I wonder what type of time it would take to get regrowth. Mice hairs cycle every 21 days. I suspect rabbits cycle close to mice. Humans cycle longer. Maybe I can get a rabbit and repeat the exact steps they did 50 years ago.What do you think Benji?