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aka not jarjarbinx
If you could run any study (or clinical trial of a non patented drug, if that existed), what would you run it on?
how much do you think it would cost?
It could be outsourced to, for instance:
http://www.incresearch.com/TheTrustedProcess/Clinical-Trials-Outsourcing.aspx
This is great, good find, needhairasap.
Does it have to be a non-patented drug? I guess so. But that’s exactly the problem. Almost ANY drug that seems to have any potential early on would be patented.
On the other hand, searching for something which isn’t patented would be hard because most of these compounds are either so common they might have been tested already at home by amateurs, or would have to be specially conceived and developed by someone and then deliberately not patented.
As a general idea, I would pick the most effective PGD2 receptor blocker I could find that wasn’t patented, and test that.
There are a few asian countries that didn’t sign the paris treaty, which means they don’t adhere to the leading international agreement on intellectual property. These asians countries probably have similar companies that specialize in doing outsourced trials and studies. If you get what I am saying. We should get a quote and put together some estimates for total project costs. Crowdfunding legislation is coming early 2014 and we could raise up to $1M per year under it…one dollar at a time from anybody we want… with people giving money getting an actual stake in the venture versus donating it via kickstarters donation model… of course wed have to be testing a marketable substance or protocol, if its not marketable and purely for research, kickstarter could be used immediately.
I am pessimistic about what there is to find. IMHO anything that produces enough of a benefit to be worth getting worked up about would be known already from anecdotal responses.
The effectiveness of Fin/Dut and Minox against MPB were observed & discovered pretty easily. Researchers eventually did trials to confirm and measure what they already knew was obviously happening, not really to discover if anything was happening at all.
But those drugs are still not really very effective in the big picture.
How effective is some new thing going to be, if the effect is so small we cannot even notice it without doing a scientific trial? Essentially worthless IMO.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
I am pessimistic about what there is to find. IMHO anything that produces enough of a benefit to be worth getting worked up about would be known already from anecdotal responses.
The effectiveness of Fin/Dut and Minox against MPB were observed & discovered pretty easily. Researchers eventually did trials to confirm and measure what they already knew was obviously happening, not really to discover if anything was happening at all.
But those drugs are still not really very effective in the big picture.
How effective is some new thing going to be, if the effect is so small we cannot even notice it without doing a scientific trial? Essentially worthless IMO.[/quote]
Great points, cal. I agree.
And if there was some safe/effective treatment that isn’t being tested then surely its’ owned by some drug company and of course if some drug company owned a safe/effective cure for hair loss that company would have no trouble getting the financing to bring it to market or sell it to a richer company for many many Yankee dollars.
Although I do admit that I am curious about the HHAG 1.8 drug that got shelved and I would like to see if it could grow hair on human skin grafted to mice. It’s a sonic hedgehog molecule formerly owned by P & G but now owned by some other drug company.
So little missis, when’s your crowd-funding bake sale gonna take place? Could you please bring some of those little cooking with the m&m’s baked into them? I love the little cookies with the m&m’s baked into them and I will pay a handsome reward for some of those. Don’t forget to wear an apron when you bake those on account of when my mom used to bake them they would get hot in the oven and when she would bring them out of the oven sometimes the m7m’s would pop open and when she went to take them cookies off the cookie sheet she would get chocolate on her hands and then wipe the chocolate on her dress and make such a mess all over herself. It would be best for you to wear an apron I would wager.
Then I would lick the chocolate off of her jarjar… mmmmm
I guess well trust you jarjar. The guy who’s logic led him to believe histogen was holding the cure all ready lol… jarjar knows best.
To the rest, if histogens ceo and cisteralis himself both say they don’t have the fundibg to tesr orotocols etc that we suggest… that’s evidence for my theory. Evidence for your theory would be the existence of a cure… and I don’t see a cure around…
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by needhairasap[/postedby]
Then I would lick the chocolate off of her jarjar… mmmmm
I guess well trust you jarjar. The guy who’s logic led him to believe histogen was holding the cure all ready lol… jarjar knows best.
To the rest, if histogens ceo and cisteralis himself both say they don’t have the fundibg to tesr orotocols etc that we suggest… that’s evidence for my theory. Evidence for your theory would be the existence of a cure… and I don’t see a cure around…[/quote]
Academic research doesn’t happen because the researchers are independently wealthy and use their own capital. It happens because they apply for grants (usually government money, sometimes money that’s already in the university system) and the grants are slated only for specific purposes.
When Dr. Garza says he doesn’t have the money, he means there’s no money earmarked for a PGE2 study right now in the grant pipeline at his lab.
Needhairasap, cal is absolutely right. You don’t understand how research is funded, you have no idea of what drives funding for specific projects. It’s not just a simple lack of money, it’s much more complicated than you think.
Plus, I’m afraid the painful reality is that these researchers are MOSTLY involved in conducting small incremental studies which perpetuate their own salaries through grant awards. Each individual study in academic research is only intended to move the total understanding by a few microns. It’s intentionally done that way, because that’s how they make their living.
As soon as something really BIG and remarkable is found, it’s immediately sold to some big pharma company which has the capital to do clinical trials and market the drug.
People also don’t understand Follica. Follica is a business opportunity, a highly leveraged, low-budget company basically built on semi-vaporware, in that they acquired rights to what is essentially an immature technology, from Dr. Cotsarelis. It is not quite a “shell” company, but has some of the attributes of that unfortunate trend in US business: the company set up only for its directors to eventually cash out of. Exit strategy is everything.
I say it’s an immature technology because they have the skin perturbation (wounding) part, but what they don’t have is the drug to apply which will serve as a silver-bullet to maximize the potential of the skin perturbation.
Right now they’re trying (desperately, I think), to find that compound that, coupled with wounding, will deliver results impressive enough to get funding or sell to a big pharma company.
When they acquired rights to this idea, they should have thought harder about the fact that it was an immature technology.
All the articles we’re seeing in Xconomy, HuffingtonPost, Wall Street Journal, etc. IMO, are part of a big PR push by the company to create a buzz that will lead to some VC or other big source of capital talking to them about more funding and getting them to the point to where they can finance big clinical trials.
But they don’t even have the optimum candidate drug yet to use in those clinical trials, and that’s a big problem. It’s a Catch 22 in getting funding.
The key takeaway point here is that they DO NOT have that silver bullet magic compound yet that, together with the wounding, will grow an impressive amount of hair. And they may NEVER have that compound, because inherently the wounding thing might be something that, while it can induce a little bit of hair, really doesn’t have the potential to generate a lot of hair.
If they had that magic bullet compound by now, believe me, we’d know about it. And if they don’t find that compound pretty soon, whatever little funding they still have is going to dry up, some of the principals like the CEO are going to lose interest, they may sell their IP at a loss, and they’ll be history.
It may be better just to inject stem cells or progenitor cells directly, as Dr. Nigam is doing, rather than taking this roundabout, indirect and backdoor approach of wounding the scalp, just to get around FDA prohibitions on using cultured stem cells.
I’m definitely somewhat discouraged by the news coming out of Histogen except I still think that they might have a major breakthrough IF it’s compoundable and so far the evidence indicates that it IS compoundable.
I’ve moved Histogen from my “SURE CURE” list to my “Maybe cure” list.
Right now I don’t have any “sure cures” at all and the strongest “maybe cure” I have is doctor Nigam’s 3d spheroids, microfollicles, and stem cell/progenitor/dp cell techniques. He might actually save the day for us. We should know in a matter of months.
Although one thing about injecting cells into the skin that concerns me is your own point that if those cells do not land at follicles then they don’t promote hair growth whereas wounding with some as-of-yet-unnamed compound would affect all of the follicles inside of the area wounded and sprinkled with the magic compound.
Although I do have some concerns about your point regards to this issue because in all of the test subjects that Aderans made public the person gained most of the benefit in the outer rim of the crown bald spot, which is where the hair most recently to be dying would be located. There is nothing random about where the hair growth benefit was achieved and if your theory were correct then the regrowth benefit would be random throughout the area injected with hairs sprouting here and there in some herky-jerky fashion instead of rejuvenation happening only where the most recently lost hairs are located.
I think that this suggests that these cells are landing in the follicles and reparing least damaged follicles and perhaps over time with more injections the areas that have more damaged follicles will also improve.
Dr. Nigam is testing follow-up multiple injection dates and advanced new cellular techniques. Right now I’m thinking he’s our best chance of putting this nightmare behind us.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by jarjarbinx[/postedby]
although one thing about injecting cells into the skin that concerns me is your own point that if those cells do not land at follicles then they don’t promote hair growth whereas wounding with some as-of-yet-unnamed compound would affect all of the follicles inside of the area wounded and sprinkled with the magic compound.[/quote]
Right, good point, and that is a problem to consider.
However, remember that (as far as I know), ARI and the others were just injecting DP cells, fibroblasts and keratinocytes, NOT stem cells and progenitor cells.
It’s known that progenitor cells are motile and they have a tendency to migrate from wherever they are to the dermal papilla, where they activate the follicle. Stem cells also normally have a tendency to be motile and to migrate to wherever they are needed (however, in the hair follicle, it seems the cells with most motility are the progenitor cells, not the HF stem cells).
Also Dr. Nigam is talking about targeting injections. But one would have to assume ARI tried very hard at that, too.
I am hoping that since stem and progenitor cells have this natural motility, that they’ll get to where they needed much better than injected DP cells, keratinocytes, and fibroblasts.
Another thing is I think progenitor cells may have FAR more hair inductive capability than the other cells do. The problem is that the FDA won’t allow them to be cultured or injected, but India will.
You have to remember that when we compare Dr. Nigam with ARI, I believe we’re comparing apples and oranges, because they are concentrating on injecting different types of cells.
I should be clear here, Dr. Nigam also has done A LOT of work with injecting DP cells, fibroblasts, etc. according to his accounts. That should not be forgotten.
The big difference is that he is apparently (according to his accounts) also culturing and injecting stem and progenitor cells, while ARI and the rest never did this in their trials.
I don’t see Dr. Nigam’s treatment creating entirely new follicles the way Follica’s setup could. Crucial difference.
Well, so far all we have from Dr. Nigam is his word. We really are still lacking any kind of proof that he is actually doing what he is claiming.
Apart from that I agree that there are currently no treatments that look like they are going to deliver any kind of short or mid-term solution to hair loss. I have already consulted with Dr Maras at HDC in Cyprus for a hair transplant. I’m finally giving up on waiting and hoping for a cure.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by jarjarbinx[/postedby]
I’m definitely somewhat discouraged by the news coming out of Histogen except I still think that they might have a major breakthrough IF it’s compoundable and so far the evidence indicates that it IS compoundable.
I’ve moved Histogen from my “SURE CURE” list to my “Maybe cure” list.
Right now I don’t have any “sure cures” at all and the strongest “maybe cure” I have is doctor Nigam’s 3d spheroids, microfollicles, and stem cell/progenitor/dp cell techniques. He might actually save the day for us. We should know in a matter of months.[/quote]
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
I don’t see Dr. Nigam’s treatment creating entirely new follicles the way Follica’s setup could. Crucial difference.[/quote]
We know that Follica is claiming that they create new follicles, but that’s all it is – a claim. We have seen no evidence of it. I don’t recall even a single photo. And we don’t know how many new follicles they claim they’re creating. Three, after 100 injections? We have no idea because they haven’t given us detailed reports.
Remember, ARI initially claimed they could create new follicles. First they were creating new follicles, then it was a mixture of growing new follicles and reviving miniaturized ones, then they weren’t sure, then it was just reviving miniaturized follicles, then they got dumped by the parent company.
One of the things Dr. Nigam is doing is working with 3D spheroids and “proto-follicle” like structures he’s creating in his lab. If this were successful, it would lead to new follicles – that is the point.
I am somewhat skeptical that an MD (or Indian equivalent) who is not a trained laboratory cytologist can do that, but his claim is what it is, and we’ve seen pictures.
Couldn’t he hire trained laboratory cytologist? And remember the researchers who have worked with 3d spheroids and microfollicles have put a lot of info out there in public and Dr. Nigam says he talks with them as well. At first I asked myself why other researchers would share info with another doctor/researcher but then I decided that it is possible that the other researchers would share info with someone like Dr. Nigam because he would push the envelope (creating new information for the other researchers) and because they figure they are only giving up India since most people can’t afford to go to India for hair, especially since it would involve numerous trips.
And then there’s Dr. Nigam’s pictures as your yourself point out.
Follica creating all new follicles:
I don’t believe the concept might work just because they claim it. I believe in the possibility because of their method. Dermatologists have observed all-new follicle creation in live humans resulting from dermbrasion alone. That is a known fact predating Follica.
I believe Follica can grow hair, but not commercially significant. Their basic idea is right according to all evidence. If anything, Nigam’s idea (and ARI/Replicel/Intercytex)is the one that hasn’t planned out as expected. Just injecting dissociated cells is not going to grow hair follicles. The cells will at minimum need to be aggregated, either into 3D DP’s or protofollicles. (which Nigam is working on, but that research has paused thanks to this doubling stuff).
As for trying new drugs, I believe the best candidate for trial is PGE2. There is strong theoretical and empirical basis for PGE2, and I think it is highly worth trying. It is not going to create new hair, but will be a useful addition to a typical MPB regimen.
[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by cal[/postedby]
Follica creating all new follicles:
I don’t believe the concept might work just because they claim it. I believe in the possibility because of their method. Dermatologists have observed all-new follicle creation in live humans resulting from dermbrasion alone. That is a known fact predating Follica.[/quote]
Yes, but my understanding is that it’s exceedingly rare with dermabrasion. It would be more accurate to call it a “rare anomaly” than a reliable phenomenon.
I don’t know if you can turn an anomaly into a viable treatment.
I thought that Dr. Nigam was working on 3d spheroids and microfollicles/protofollicles. Are you saying he stopped working on them?
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