It’s not BS. Eventually, i believe this line of research will lead to the cure. However, there is still tons of basic research to be conducted and then, once the puzzle is solved, they have to go through clinical trials and then figure out how to commercialize it. As we’ve seen with aderans and replicel, the clinical trial process is ridiculously slow and fraught with problems - financial as well as technical. So, this is a long way off. I think it will be significantly longer than 10 years.
I agree that eventually that eventually cell-based therapy will be the cure for hair loss. The challenges are daunting though:
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They still have to figure out some things.
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One thing I can tell you is that they are going to need to find a way to get adipose cell growth factors and proteins into the scalp because there isn’t a sufficient supply of these in balding scalp.
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Once they get done figuring out all of the technical aspects then they will have to start trials.
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Clinical trials and regulatory approval.
All this could take 10 years easy, but most of that time will be the clinical trials & regulatory approval process. I think all of the technical issues should be resolved within 3 years. But I don’t think we’ll see vastly earlier marketing somewhere ala adipose derived stem cells because this treatment will be a lot more complicated and involved than harvesting and re-implanting adipose stem cells. Some clinics abroad may try to release it early (say in 5 years) but it’s doubtful they will be able to perform it correctly. New tools may have to be invented in order to make this type of treatment work.
Okay, so they can make skin regenerate primitive types of follicles. It sounds like they just need to figure out how to persuade them to form terminal scalp hairs in particular.
But you know why this doesn’t encourage me? Because Cotsarelis has already been stalled at this stage for most of a decade. He figured out a while back that simply plucking vellus hairs and then dermabrading the scalp would do the same thing.
I still think that science is gaining ground every month as some new discovery that could aid in the battle against baldness is made. But I still think that we are 10 years from getting our hands on a cell-based treatment involving DP cells or the like.
I think our best AND ONLY chance for the here-and-now is AAPE. There’s an outside chance the injecting adipose derived stem cells might work but they don’t stay in the injected area for very long and that could prevent them from effectively treating hair loss. I think AAPE injections are the more certain way to go.
You seem to get fixated on a new “BEST and ONLY option for this decade” about twice a year. Lots of stuff is new right now but none of it is particularly promising IMO.
And you seem to discredit everything.
As far as my own past hopes for Aderans, Replicel, and Histogen go, my past hopes were reasonable. Lots of people thought these we’re going to be breakthrough treatments, not just me. Some of the top doctors in dermatology were hopeful that at least one of these 3 would breakout and become a revolutionary treatment. That hasn’t happened so far but both Replicel and Histogen are struggling along. The jury is still out on both of them.
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In any case, I have a valid point about AAPE.
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Jahoda himself is now adding adipose derived stem cells to his cellular constructs because they produce the very same excretions that are inside AAPE. This means that Jahoda himself is thinking that the exact excretions that are inside AAPE are of value to hair growth.
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In addition, Yale University scientists have determined that the signals from adipose derived stem cells are required in order to activate hair growth and those signals ARE ALL THAT IS REQUIRED to prompt hair growth.
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In addition, there is AT LEAST one study that shows that AAPE does indeed grow hair.
So whatever your problem with AAPE is it is not based on fact. But then again your problem isn’t really with AAPE. Your problem is a personal problem with myself and to yourself. If you took the time to go over the information about AAPE you would see that I have a valid point.
Here below bolded is a tb.t post by Aaron Gardner, who works on Jahoda’s team. It is in the Q & A with Aaron Gardner thread on page 8. When he talks about the things that his team is doing he is really speaking of Jahoda’s team.
No one has presented, or published work demonstrating full retention of inductivity or gene expression. As I said above “But I don’t think 100% restoration is required in culture, it won’t hurt but a lot of the character of the DP in vivo is generated by its interactions with surrounding tissue. All we and the other groups are attempting to do is restore enough character to the DP cells to kick start this interaction with a high efficiency.”
The addition of growth factors is not desirable for clinical practice. Producing these factors to a clinical standard is very difficult and expensive, it is better to try and induce the cells to make these factors themselves.
I’m not sure what you mean about the sheath cells, do you mean are they important for hair follicle orientation?
The interaction of any constructs with the surrounding tissues is key yes, as I’ve mentioned previously implanting these constructs into skin which has underlying problems will not “cure” baldness. Co-therapies limiting the degradation of any new follicles would be required.
Multi-cell models including adipocytes (fat cells) and melanocytes (cells that provide colouration) are in the works, but I can’t talk about those at the moment.
Please note that he talks about using cells to produce growth factors and the cells he talks about are “adipocytes” which produce the growth factors that are inside AAPE. In a nutshell, he’s telling us that Jahoda will use “adipocytes” to get these very same AAPE growth factors and proteins into his petri dish cellular constructs.
I don’t see how that refutes my point.
Their existing progress at all-new follicles is more or less equalled in vivo by simple known methods. Whatever additional new ingredients they might be researching are still characterized as future progress in the works.
I am not calling the whole endeavor worthless. I’m just saying I don’t see any practical progress toward a commercial MPB treatment here. In other words, no reason to get excited.
Cal it tells us that Jahoda is going to use the same growth factors and proteins inside of AAPE to improve his petri-dish efforts to make hair grow. If Jahoda can make a hair growing mechanism in a petri-dish grow hair more effectively by adding these growth factors and proteins to the petri-dish doesn’t that support my idea that by adding these same growth factors and proteins into the hair growing mechanism in our scalps we should be able to grow hair more effectively.
It looks me to me like Jahoda will use these growth factors (by using the cells that produce the growth factors) to improve his petri-dish results and if that will work in a petri-dish why wouldn’t it also work if we simply inject the same growth factors and proteins into the follicles in our own skin?
I think that if adding the cells that produce the growth factors will improve Jahoda’s results in a petri-dish then injecting those same growth factors (AAPE) directly into our skin should likewise make our hair better.
You and I are discussing whether or not AAPE should be helpful, and the way it stands right now I have 3 strong pieces of evidence that it will be helpful:
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Yale supports what I’m saying.
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Jahoda supports what I’m saying.
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There is at least one study that shows that AAPE grows hair.
Adipose derived stem cells are available right NOW and we could probably get these adipose derived stem cell clinics to start doing AAPE injections within 60 days if we tried. But you want to over-hype the negative for some reason.
Jarjar, you are making a lot of good points, but remember Dr. Jahoda’s endgame is to create new follicles, while AAPE would probably be working mainly by (we hope) regenerating existing miniaturized follicles.
I’m not saying there’s a clear bright line here, because (1) part of what Jahoda is doing may help in regenerating miniaturized follicles and (2) AAPE might potentially generate some new follicles.
But nonetheless there is some difference, Jahoda/Christiano are basically working on creating new follicles in a petri dish that could be implanted into the scalp, whereas most other experimental treatments, whether it’s injecting cells (like Aderans and Replicel), or injecting cell derivatives (like Histogen and AAPE) have been more focused more on reviving old follicles.
An issue we have to consider is that maybe the idea of reviving miniaturized follicles has some kind of built-in limitations, in that many miniaturized follicles in many people are simply no longer amenable to being revived, no matter how many cells, excretions, extracts, solutions and potions you throw at them.
Sure, this approach may revive a few miniaturized follicles here and there, but the problem may be with the follicles themselves, rather than the things we’re injecting. The resistance might be something inherent in miniaturized follicles, e.g., that they’ve been structurally dismantled (to varying degrees) at the inter-cellular level, and no amount of cells or cell derivatives is going to rebuild what nature has “unbuilt”.
If that’s true, then the true answer, and the ultimate cure for MPB, is creating new follicle constructs from stem cells and other cells in the lab, and nothing short of that will ever give most balding people a full head of hair back.
At this point, we still don’t know for sure, but I think that slowly and gradually, the evidence is accumulating that this might be the case.
I don’t know for sure if there is a limit to how much hair can be regrown usingn existing follicles Roger. Nobody does.
There are exceptionally good responders to existing treatments who seem to indicate that it is possible to get back all the hair you still have follicles for. For example, there are people who get amazing results from topical minoxidil with and without propecia. My uncle is one of them. He went from missing half his hair to a full head of hair with only 2% minoxidil. The medical literature talks about these cases. I figure most people just need a higher bar of therapy than minoxidil offers. Some people can get back full heads of hair with propecia but most people can not. I figure most people just need a higher bar of therapy.
in my view, the evidence is shaping up that most of us just need better treatment than what is available because if it is impossible to get hair back after the losses reach a certain point then those people who are getting great results from existing treatment would not be getting those great results.
I think that Jahoda and others will come up with a better treatment and make it available to us in 10 years or longer. But I also suspect that at some point 4 or 5 years into the future from now AAPE, or something like AAPE, will regrow substantial amounts of hair which will mean that we allowed years of our lives to go by with thinning hair needlessly because we could have recovered a satisfying amount of hair in 2014 if we had focused on finding a way to get AAPE in 2014 rather than assuming it wouldn’t work and giving up on it without proof that it wouldn’t work.
There is at least one study, perhaps 2, that indicate that it does work. There are no studies demonstrating that it doesn’t work. Even at the recent 2014 hair loss congress there were reports about AAPE. So there are still researchers investigating it. Why would researchers continue to investigate a treatment that is known to be ineffective?
I think it’s pretty clear that it’s not known to be effective.
I meant to say that it’s not known to be ineffective.
[quote]An issue we have to consider is that maybe the idea of reviving miniaturized follicles has some kind of built-in limitations, in that many miniaturized follicles in many people are simply no longer amenable to being revived, no matter how many cells, excretions, extracts, solutions and potions you throw at them.
Sure, this approach may revive a few miniaturized follicles here and there, but the problem may be with the follicles themselves, rather than the things we’re injecting. The resistance might be something inherent in miniaturized follicles, e.g., that they’ve been structurally dismantled (to varying degrees) at the inter-cellular level, and no amount of cells or cell derivatives is going to rebuild what nature has “unbuilt”.[/quote]
IIRC, totally balded follicles that have been transplanted onto SCID mice will regenerate themselves to full size again.
I don’t take that to necessarily mean we will be able to do the same in vivo. In fact I would probably give the odds of that ever happening no more than 50%. But it’s more possible in raw theory than these forums would leave one to believe.
I also don’t find it very amusing that year after year the hair research world has not appeared to focus any direct energies into explaining the mice phenomenon. It’s like they have gotten so used to mice growing hair better than humans that they don’t even try to understand why anymore. Maybe somebody needs to explain the potential relevance to them in small words.
Roger it gets down to this: we don’t know for sure if AAPE will or won’t work on a specific individual person, but it will probably work on (at least) some of us because in at least one study involving some patients it worked on all of them. Based on that it’s clear it could work on at least some of us.
By myself I can’t get the clinics that are offering ADSCs to offer AAPE. It will probably take a group of us mailing emails. At every site I talk about this there is nobody willing to help by sending emails to the clinics already offering ADSCs. Nobody. They won’t expend the energy to send out an email to try to help themselves. Everybody comes up with reasons for why it *might" not work and then gives up.
It’s a potential cure staring us right in the face and nobody will work with me to send a large group of emails asking the ADSC clinics to offer AAPE. It’s surreal.
Guys complain about how things are taking too long and how there’s nothing coming to market in the foreseeable future. I raise the issue of AAPE, not one poster produces even a shred of evidence that AAPE won’t work, but everyone throws in the towel and goes back to complaining about delays and how nothing is coming to market for years.
The main thing is that the clinics that are already offering ADSCs could probably be persuaded to offer AAPE because the ADSCs they’re already injecting excrete AAPE anyway. As a matter of fact, that’s the desired effect. These clinics are injecting ADSCs into patients in the hopes that the ADSCs will excrete AAPE, which will hopefully activate hair growth. Since the clinics offering ADSCs are already offering the cells that excrete AAPE it doesn’t seem like much of a leap to get them to offer AAPE.
The AAPE clinics are not going to listen to me alone. I already sent them an email about AAPE over a week ago but they haven’t responded. Our best bet is if we can get a lot of people to ask them to offer AAPE.
Is it this stuff you’re talking about?
I would think twice before trusting that website – that page has broken links, and the whole thing looks hastily put together, as if someone is trying to quickly capitalize on the current buzz about AAPE.
I don’t think the site is legit. If I thought it was the real deal i would consider buying it. But one thing bothers me is that these growth factors have to be processed and stored certain ways at certain temps and stuff like that. I do not think that the stuff at this site is the real deal and if it is it’s probably lost its’ potency due to incorrect storage and formulating.
The correct stuff is supposed to come from a specific south korean company.
JarJar, let me know what you’re doing and I’ll help.
Trey
Trey, I sent messages to the clinics that are doing adipose derived stem cell treatments asking them to try AAPE injections as well. I think that since the adipose derived stem cells migrate out of the injected area rapidly the cells don’t get a chance to excrete much of the necessary growth factors and proteins before they’re gone from the scalp area. For this reason I think that injecting the growth factors and proteins themselves would probably be better. There is a substance called AAPE made by a South Korean company that appears to contain the correct growth factors and proteins for hair growth. The thing is that I have sent the clinics injecting adipose derived stem cells repeated messages but they told someone that they are not getting my messages because I used the clinic’s own website’s message form and the clinic says their site’s message form is not functioning. Whatever!
2 of the posters at the b@ld truth are getting adipose derived stem cells treatments at a couple of the respected clinics offering adipose derived stem cell treatments for hair loss. Those two posters want to talk with me so we can formulate a plan to get the clinics that are offering adipose derived stem cells to also offer AAPE. Those 2 posters asked me to post my email address so we could work on getting things worked out. I tried to post my email address at the b@ld truth but the b@ld truth does not allow posters to post their email addresses. The b@ld truth says it don’t allow posters to post email addresses because they don’t want us spamming each other. I think that the real reason is that Spencer Kobren, who owns the b@ld truth site, wants to see what everyone is talking about so he can stay aware of up-to-the-minute information about hair loss. He has a radio show & he’s kind of like a reporter and he wants to get leads any way he can so that he can be the hair loss information source that releases new information. In other words, I think that he’s preventing us from communicating privately with one another because he wants to force us to keep him in the information loop. But of course this is bad for us because exchanging information on messages boards is not as fast as emailing back and forth is so by not allowing posters to exchange contact information Spencer is slowing things down and making it harder to communicate ideas in some instances. For example, if those other 2 posters and I could exchange email addresses we could then send each other our telephone numbers, and we could work out all of the details in 2 or 3 phone calls over 2 or 3 days, but to try to do the same thing by posts at a website could take weeks or even a month since there are language issues involved. The other 2 guys are from European countries and their English is a little different So there are misunderstandings and it takes days to clear this stuff up by posts at a website whereas it would take minutes on the telephone to work all of this stuff out.
I think that Spencer Kobren is impeding baldness treatment progress so he can help himself.
And with Histogen’s HSC moving forward maybe it’s no big deal that Spencer Kobren is inhibiting hair loss sufferers from communicating privately about AAPE, which might cure hair loss. Histogen’s HSC is very similar to AAPE, although AAPE is nature’s version of these growth factors and proteins so that means that AAPE is EXACTLY what the follicles need whereas HSC might be missing an ingredient or two. But Histogen is talking about possibly using Japan’s fast-track laws to put HSC on the market soon - perhaps in 2016. So HSC could be on the market soon, but keep in mind that if we could work it out that the clinics offering adipose derived stem cells would also offer AAPE injections then we would be able to get nature’s own version of Histogen rather than Histogen’s man-made version of growth factors and proteins. Also, if we could get the clinics offering adipose derived stem cells hair loss treatments to also offer AAPE then that would result in price competition for Histogen which would help to keep Histogen from charging an arm and a leg for their HSC. In other words, yes Histogen’s HSC may come to market in a year and a half or so BUT if you want to be able to afford it you should try to get the clinics offering adipose derived stem cells to offer AAPE as well. Doing so would force price competition on Histogen.
So this means that Spencer Kobren’s policy of not permitting posters to exchange private contact information could cause hair loss sufferers to have to pay higher prices for HSC when it comes out. I’ve given up trying to post my email address to those other 2 posters at the b@ld truth even though they are asking for my email address. I tried posting to the other 2 posters that the b@ld truth won’t let my posts with my email address stick but the b@ld truth won’t let those posts stick either. It looks like Spencer is trying to keep posters from discovering that he doesn’t allow the exchange of contact information between posters.
Spencer’s a creep!