Using fat to help wounds heal without scars and grow hair

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
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Looks like interesting news-they might be able to regenerate skin (instead of forming a scar) which includes growing hair follicles.

If this is for real and it comes to the market it’d be great for those who want to remove scars and potentially also regenerate hair. Also the key researcher has been looking for a treatment for hair loss for a long time so he may be a familiar name to some people here.

2 Likes
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Here’s a similar article, this was published in Science magazine also, meaning it’s got real credibility so we could see a win-win scenario here, skin healing without scarring as well as hair regrowth since the skin regeneration requires a hair follicle to occur.

Probably the first bit of legit science I’ve seen in a while that’s really promising…ofc they don’t mention an ETA but I’d guess the usual 5-10 years…so long as they prove it can work then it’s inevitable we’ll see some therapy soon after. This would be great for burn victims or those who’d had serious injuries. It may bring us closer to regenerating limbs and organs.

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Thanks. Great find. So they say they can regenerate hair with skin. In that article, Dr. Cotsarelis says, “The secret is to regenerate the hair follicles first.” Am I the only one skeptical about that? He’s making it sound too easy. If it were that easy, they’d be selling this already.

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Roger_that,
As we well know, Cots is great at making all these discoveries but they seemed to never pan out.

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No problem and glad you liked it. Perhaps it was a recent discovery-based on the samples they tested, it appears to have succeeded, see the linked article also Using Fat to Help Wounds Heal Without Scars - Penn Medicine.

Unfortunately the field of medicine is the slowest of all sciences when it comes to making breakthroughs. So to me this looks genuinely promising and partly because there are more researchers and institutions involved than just Dr Cotsarelis (who we know has been at this game for a long time).

Hopefully this is the ‘cure’ that we’re all waiting for, but I think we’re going to have to keep waiting another few years to see if it really pans out or if it becomes just another medical curiosity and only grows hair for mice.

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@superhl,

He may be onto something and as mentioned in my previous post there are more groups involved in this study than just Dr Cot, lending greater credence to this research. I feel it has real potential.

I know many of us having been waiting for years some even decades for a cure and we’ve gotten jaded due to all the disappointment we’ve experienced, so you’re right to be skeptical, but it’s also good to keep an open-mind since you never know when they might actually succeed.

And the other benefit here is that it’ll be used for skin regeneration. Those types of discoveries tend to be the best, when they’re working on a cure for one ailment but then realize that it can be used to treat other diseases/disorders as well.

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This is the best news I have heard in a while, I have been putting off getting my strip scars fixed hoping for something effective in the pipeline, if Dr. Cotsarelis and his team succeed, I can get my hair back and my scars fixed at the same time.

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I’m not clear if this is a procedure that can fix existing (old) scars, or if the scars have to be just forming for it to work.

Existing scars would already be full of fibrinocytes and fibrin. From what I can tell from the description of the procedure, it seems the fat cells have to be put in the wounded area just as the scar is forming, to stop fibrinocytes from entering the area.

I may be wrong. Anyone know?

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Based on what I read in the article this procedure can be used to repair scars. It shouldn’t be any different from repairing a new wound-excise old scar, insert the fat cells and wait for skin to regenerate/heal. If I recall correctly, they also mentioned it could be used on burn victims.

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Ya Stitch, it’ll be great if it pans out (and if they release it the next 5-10 yrs). Here’s hoping…but realistically I suspect we probably have a long wait. I bet when they develop a therapy I’ll be in my 60s by then (I’m in my 40s now). :unamused:

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Good news for guys who have had hair transplants before and living with scars however I am not sure if they can develop this so that it can also apply to guys who have never had transplants before, it would be a huge negative if the treatment involves intentionally wounding myself in order to grow new hair.

I still think cell multiplication is the ultimate answer for the majority.

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One encouraging sign is that according to the original link they have already tested successfully in humans (not just mice) , that s one thing we can get excited about.

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First, they have to prove they can regrow hairs consistently.

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Perhaps this explains why doctors are successful in fixing strip scars with FUE grafts, all donor grafts retain a certain amount of fat tissue , now we have proof that the fat tissue is critical in ensuring graft survival in existing scars and breaking up the dead scar surface.

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@epiker0, not sure if I agree. Scar tissue is full of fibrin and it’s inert. The way I read this, in order for the fat cells to work you have to have an active healing process going on. What you said about repairing a scar is true, the normal way is to excise part of it. But if you’re going to take an old scar and use this new process, you’d still have to excise some of the scar tissue, which means you’re basically doing the same thing as the old process.

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When I had herpes on finger I read https://illnessee.com/herpes-on-fingers-pictures/ and learn that coconut oil and garlic is very useful for that and also it helps with hair. Maybe it can help