Here’s something new
The regeneration of hair follicles using our organ germ method is now being investigated in a pre-clinical study to cure patients suffering from androgenic alopecia, with an aim of conducting clinical trials in 2020. ???
This is disappointing, and I wonder what caused the delay?
It does sound like bad news. Delays suck. And a delay makes me think that things aren’t as hunky dory as they seemed the last time we did a Q & A with Team-Tsuji. I think we should do another Q & A with them. But I don’t know how to initiate a Q & A.
That aside, there is one thing that has always bugged me about the Tsuji plan. Since they get the cells from the follicles in your donor area what if your follicles are already thinning in your donor area? If that’s happening that could mean that the cells you’re using to produce hair germs are already unhealthy. And if those cells are unhealthy doesn’t that mean the end result could be follicles that are unhealthy like older follicles? Are we assuming that the follicles from the hair germs that come from unhealthier older follicles will produce YOUNG follicles? Could we be wrong?
f they can’t produce YOUNG HEALTHY terminal follicles on a NW5, NW6, or NW7, who has thinning in his/her donor areas, then they won’t be able to provide the desired benefit to NW5s, NW6s, and NW7s. And that would substantially limit the treatment’s market. It seems to me that, that would be the kind of problem they might want to solve.
I’m wondering/hoping that the present delay is so they can try to solve this problem…find a way to turn the clock back on those cells so the hair germs they produce will go back to an earlier state - like when the patient’s hairs were strong and healthy.
Guys are talking about freezing some of these follicles/cells now for later use but what if a person’s aga has advanced significantly and his/her donor area is already significantly affected?
I think they need a solution to this problem.
This delay does seem odd because they already knew how to grow hair using this technique so why would there be a 1-year delay. What other issue could have arisen?
Anyway the entire quote from the article says this:
“The regeneration of hair follicles using our organ germ method is now being investigated in a pre-clinical study to cure patients suffering from androgenic alopecia, with an aim of conducting clinical trials in 2020.”
Based on this quote I can’t tell if their pre-clinical study involves humans or not. I think we should do another Q & A with them.
Good questions, and on the first issue you brought up, I don’t think the new hairs will be necessarily more “youthful” than the cells harvested from the donor area. For the vast majority of people with MPB, I don’t think taking cells from the donor area would be a big concern. Most people with MPB (maybe 70-80%?) don’t have a problem with thinning hair in the donor areas - sides and back. That’s why HT is moderately successful for so many people. The main problem with HT is that there are just not enough donor follicles to restore the balding areas to anything like full thickness. Dr. Tsuji’s procedure solves that problem.
Regarding people who have balding follicles in the donor areas, I don’t think we can assume that his procedure will address that.
It might, but if you look closely at that article, you notice something: They talk about using iSPs for a lot of these organ regeneration procedures, but NOT for the hair follicle procedure. For the hair procedure, they specifically say they are using epithelial stem cells and DP cells, both taken directly from the follicle. So I would think that whatever new HF organoids they are growing, they’d have the same characteristics of the donor hair follicles.
We know that Dr. Terskikh is now using iSPs, not HF stem cells. Maybe if Dr. Tsuji would use iSPs for his procedure, instead of stem cells taken from the follicle, then the new follicles would be youthful and not express any balding tendencies like the donor follicles in some people. So maybe that makes a difference.
They’ve been able to grow the hairs for some time now so it’s hard to imagine what could cause the delay. This is why I think it’s time for another Q & A with Team-Tsuji.
Agree, it would be nice to have an update with specifics about what’s going on.
It would especially be nice now that there is reason to believe there might be a delay. Do you know how we can get a Team-Tsuji Q & A going through Hairsite? Hairsite has sponsored a Q & A with Team - Tsuji in the past for us. Do you know how I can get Hairsite to try to do it again?