Why I think that repeat injections could work better

Stem cell; cell based hair therapy
1

The thing is that Roger_that says that repeat (hm) injections would be better because when these cells are being injected they are randomly hitting some follicles, and not others, so if you keep doing injections sooner or later you will eventually get the new cells into all of the follicles.

I think Roger_that is incorrect.

The reason I think Roger_that is incorrect and the reason I think repeat injections will work better, are the same reason.

If Roger_that were right then the hair improvement would be random throughout the bald area. You’d get a new hair here and there scatter-shot throughout the bald are. But that isn’t what’s happening. What is happening is that the hairs on the outer-rim of the crown were getting thicker while there was only a little bit of improvement more to the inside of the crown.

This means that the cells are not affecting the follicles in a random manner, but rather the cells are improving the quality of the most recently lost hairs which would also be the strongest hairs among the lost hairs.

This means that cell injections do work and if it will work on the lost hairs that are most recently lost (and therefor the strongest follicles among the follicles that are shutting down) then there is no reason to think that it won’t also work on the more damaged follicles that have lost hair longer, but it would just require more cells to be injected at more dates.

The point is that the process works and of course the least damaged follicles will be the easiest to treat and will require the least amount of treatment to show improvement. So the hairs you most recently lost would require one treatment but if you want to get hair from the follicles that have been damaged longer you will have to have more treatments.

2

has it occured to you that the chances of hitting a follicle are much larger at the outer rim of the balding patch? the further a follicle has shrunk, the harder it will be to get cells to migrate into them.

3

It goes without say that where the follicles are bigger, more numerous, and more viable, when the cells hit them they’ll have a greater effect.

I wasn’t really negating what you’ve said about the amount of time elapsed since a follicle started miniaturizing. Sure, it is probably true that in most cases, the “healthier” follicles which started balding more recently will be more prone to grow.

I think this whole thing is rapidly becoming a side issue, though.

The real issue may be, WHAT KINDS OF CELLS ARE YOU INJECTING?

If you’re injecting DP cells, fibroblasts and keratinocytes, like ARI, that may be a problem. They may be practically limited when it comes to trichogenicity. I don’t believe ARI was EVER culturing and injecting stem/progenitor cells as FDA-approved activities within their trials.

Gho talked a lot about injecting stem cells, but he’s not doing it now. Instead he has a misnamed “Hair Stemcell Transplant” which doesn’t involve culturing and injecting stem cells. He’s only dissecting follicles and moving one half to the balding area. He calls that “Hair Stemcell Transplantation”, but he’s just transplanting half of a follicle, not actual stem cells. He calls it that name because he would argue, “I’m transplanting half of the stem cells which are inside the half of the follicle that I’m moving”. But it’s misleading marketing, it has nothing to do with culturing and injecting stem cells.

If culturing and injecting stem cells were legally permitted for a doctor in the Netherlands, Gho would be doing that!

Culturing and injecting stem cells (and PROGENITOR CELLS) is not legal in the USA, and not legal anywhere in the EU (except maybe Cyprus according to Dr. Nigam). I don’t believe ARI ever did it.

Dr. Nigam claims to be doing it. Since we know it’s not prohibited in India, Dr. Nigam’s claim is reasonable, because why would he hesitate to do something which is legal?

The question about whether HF stem cells and HF progentior cells are easy to culture, or have ever been cultured, is another one. If you look at one paper by Dr. Cotsarelis and Dr. Garza, the answer to both questions is “no”. They say HF stem and progenitor cells are NOT easy to culture and claim it has never been done.

If you ask Dr. Nigam, he will tell you the opposite.

So whom do we believe?

4

No Hairman that hadn’t occurred to me, however it is my recollection that in the Aderans before and afer pics the hair in the outer part of the crown completely recovered and the inside of the crown got a little regrowth. The inside of the crown looked fuzzier in the after pics than the before pics and I think that fuzziness is new hairs. If I’m right that there is new hair in the inside part of the crown that would seem to indicate that those follicles can be brought back to health. If any of those more damaged follicles in the inside of the crown can be brought back to health then why not all of them?

If you can find the before and after pics submitted by Aderans I can show you what I mean.

And Dr. Nigam is using the same cells as Aderans plus he assures us he is using some other cells that are potentially more promising - stem cells and progenitor cells.

But Roger_that says Cotseralis’s view is that it’s technologically impossible for anyone, including Dr. Nigam, to use stem cells and/or progenitor cells, even though Dr. Nigam says he’s using both. One says it can’t be done and the other says he is doing it. What do you make of this disagreement? Is there a way to get to the facts of who’s right?

5

In a post to Hairman I misquoted you and said that you indicated that Cots and Garza say it’s impossible to culture stem cells and progenitor cells when you actually said it’s never been done and it would be very difficult.

Sorry about misquoting you.

That aside, is there any way to figure out with certainty who is right - Cots/Garza or Dr. Nigam? I think it would be helpful if we could get the answer to this question with certainty.

Is there any point in asking georgex6 to ask Garza for a clarification of his and Cots’s position on this issue? After all, Garza/Cots live/work in countries where laws disallow tinkering with these stem cells and progenitor cells, and the same can be said for almost all hair researchers throughout the globe. So perhaps Cots/Garza are assuming nobody’s done it or can do it because they’re both mindful of the fact that nobody’s allowed to try it so nobody’s doing it. But they aren’t seriously factoring in that a researcher in India would not be hindered by those same regulatory restraints.

6

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by jarjarbinx[/postedby]
In a post to Hairman I misquoted you and said that you indicated that Cots and Garza say it’s impossible to culture stem cells and progenitor cells when you actually said it’s never been done and it would be very difficult.

Sorry about misquoting you.[/quote]

I believe what they said in their paper, if I can remember correctly, was something to the effect that it was extremely difficult to culture HF stem and progenitor cells, and that nobody’s ever done it. It was sort of like they were saying “fuggedaboutit”.

To figure out who’s right, I would recommend asking both sides, and then asking a “neutral” party who is highly knowledgeable, like Dr. Lauster.

By the way, this is on the downlow right now, but I do plan to be in Berlin between around 8-15 December. I hope to speak with Professor Lauster or his graduate student who is working on building new, vascularized hair follicles in vitro.

PLEASE, no one jump in and do this interview themselves, via email. I want this to be a real, worthwhile question-and-answer session, not an email exchange where one of the doctors is sent a bunch of random, jumbled and poorly thought-out questions and the doctor gives canned, one line responses to each question.

7

If they can say it’s “very difficult” then how can they say it’s never been done? The only way they could know the degree of difficulty to do it is if they did it and found out it was very difficult.

What does “fudgedaboutit” mean?

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by jarjarbinx[/postedby]
In a post to Hairman I misquoted you and said that you indicated that Cots and Garza say it’s impossible to culture stem cells and progenitor cells when you actually said it’s never been done and it would be very difficult.

Sorry about misquoting you.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

I believe what they said in their paper, if I can remember correctly, was something to the effect that it was extremely difficult to culture HF stem and progenitor cells, and that nobody’s ever done it. It was sort of like they were saying “fuggedaboutit”.[/quote]

8

It’s not “fudge” edaboutit. Its “FUGG” edaboutit. It’s New York Italian slang for “forget about it”…

9

I don’t interpret their statement, “It’s never been done” to be the same as “It’s never been tried”. I think implied in their statement is that either they tried, or they know others who tried, and none of those people, including themselves, were successful.

10

Since you will be going to Berlin in December to talk with Lauster that would be the perfect time to ask Lauster to weight in on Cots/Garza’s claim that culturing these stem cells/progenitor cells should be given up on vs Dr. Nigam’s assertion that he’s actually doing it.

First you would need Dr. Nigam to email you or post his complete technological breakdown how he’s doing it so that you can explain it in detail to Lauster and then you would also need the scientific paper wherein Cots/Garza basically say to “forget about doing it” and why they say that.

Can you get these two items?

Also, what are vascularized hair follicles and even if he does build them in his lab we would still have to wait 5 - 10 years in order to get them as a treatment, right?

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by jarjarbinx[/postedby]
In a post to Hairman I misquoted you and said that you indicated that Cots and Garza say it’s impossible to culture stem cells and progenitor cells when you actually said it’s never been done and it would be very difficult.

Sorry about misquoting you.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

I believe what they said in their paper, if I can remember correctly, was something to the effect that it was extremely difficult to culture HF stem and progenitor cells, and that nobody’s ever done it. It was sort of like they were saying “fuggedaboutit”.

To figure out who’s right, I would recommend asking both sides, and then asking a “neutral” party who is highly knowledgeable, like Dr. Lauster.

By the way, this is on the downlow right now, but I do plan to be in Berlin between around 8-15 December. I hope to speak with Professor Lauster or his graduate student who is working on building new, vascularized hair follicles in vitro.

PLEASE, no one jump in and do this interview themselves, via email. I want this to be a real, worthwhile question-and-answer session, not an email exchange where one of the doctors is sent a bunch of random, jumbled and poorly thought-out questions and the doctor gives canned, one line responses to each question.[/quote]

11

And is it fair to assume that a lot of hair researchers have tried and if the answer to that is yes then what could Dr. Nigam possibly be doing differently to make it work that nobody else has tried and why hasn’t anyone else tried the same techniques that Dr. Nigam is using?

[quote]If they can say it’s “very difficult” then how can they say it’s never been done? The only way they could know the degree of difficulty to do it is if they did it and found out it was very difficult.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

I don’t interpret their statement, “It’s never been done” to be the same as “It’s never been tried”. I think implied in their statement is that either they tried, or they know others who tried, and none of those people, including themselves, were successful.[/quote]

12

It may just be because Dr. Nigam lives in India, so he can work on this all the time without getting permission. More effort undertaken without bureaucracy and “strings attached” often leads to success.

There are other possible reasons for this statement, but I won’t go into them here, so please don’t ask.

13

I believe the statement about the difficulty of culturing HF stem and progenitor cells is in this SUMMARY of a paper by Dr. Cotsarelis and Dr. Garza. The article is on the right hand side of the front page. This article is not their work, it’s just a summary and interview with Dr. Cotsarelis. See under “Conclusions”, page 17:

http://dermatologyfoundation.org/pdf/pubs/DF_Winter_2012.pdf

14

Ok I won’t ask.

But it would be helpful to get down to the nitty-gritty regards to whether or not Dr. Nigam has actually found a way to culture these stem cells/progenitor cells because if he has then that would give us hope that he may actually have a better mousetrap than Aderans or any of the other cellular treatment technologies for hair loss.

Also if that is the case then Dr. Nigam isn’t just releasing cellular treatments sooner than anyone else because the laws where he resides allows him to so. He’s doing much more than that. If he has actually found a way to culture these stem cells/progenitor cells then he has created a new technology and he’s doing something that nobody else before him was able to do.

15

@roger:

I believe a more accurate quote of the paper was that they said that progenitor bulge stemcells are “totally resistant to culture”. Being totally resistant to culture and saying it is extremely difficult are two very different things, imho.

[quote][postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

I believe what they said in their paper, if I can remember correctly, was something to the effect that it was extremely difficult to culture HF stem and progenitor cells, and that nobody’s ever done it. It was sort of like they were saying “fuggedaboutit”.
[/quote]

16

You’re right. If they said that progenitor cells and stem cells are “totally resistant to culture” that means that they’re saying that it’s impossible.

[quote]@roger:

I believe a more accurate quote of the paper was that they said that progenitor bulge stemcells are “totally resistant to culture”. Being totally resistant to culture and saying it is extremely difficult are two very different things, imho.

[postedby]Originally Posted by roger_that[/postedby]

I believe what they said in their paper, if I can remember correctly, was something to the effect that it was extremely difficult to culture HF stem and progenitor cells, and that nobody’s ever done it. It was sort of like they were saying “fuggedaboutit”.

[postedby]Originally Posted by hairman2[/postedby][/quote]

17

I don’t know what technique Dr. Nigam is purportedly using, and I don’t know if all human stem cells are the same, but I am reading on the internet that technology to culture human stem cells has been available for at least a couple years. I don’t know if Dr. Nigam is using any of the technologies that are talked about on the internet and it might be a good idea to ask him what technique he’s using to produce and culture stem cells. I think Dr. Nigam has stated his technique in previous hairsite posts and maybe we could examine what he’s said in previous posts about how he cultures these cells to see if what he says he’s doing compares to what other researchers are doing to culture stem cells.

I like this first article the most:

And then there are these 3 articles:

http://cshprotocols.cshlp.org/content/2008/9/pdb.prot5044.full

I picked up the above articles in a quick google search. The first article is the most interesting but all of these articles say that human stem cells are cultured now.

Please note that they are not using any animal material to culture the cells and this is much safer than using animal agents.

18

Not stem cells in general. Adult human stem cells in general, from other parts of the body, and embryonic stem cells, have definitely been cultured. Cots and Garza are talking about HF stem cells. They say that basically if you try to culture them, they stop being stem cells.

They also basically are saying that progenitor cell cultures haven’t even been successfully started. My read is that they’re saying progenitor cells are EXTREMELY resistant to culturing.

19

[quote]@roger:

I believe a more accurate quote of the paper was that they said that progenitor bulge stemcells are “totally resistant to culture”. Being totally resistant to culture and saying it is extremely difficult are two very different things, imho.[/quote]

Yeah, and being totally resistant to culture is even WORSE than just being difficult.

So I didn’t get the wording exactly right. I was close to what they said. Who cares, I linked the article and you can see exactly what they’re saying right there. And you can interpret that any way you want!

20

Here’s another team that has found a way to culture stem cells (btw the older woman on the research team has the nicest breasts).

http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/july/muscle-stem.html

This study technique looks like it might be viable for any human stem cells. If Dr. Nigam isn’t trying this culture method he perhaps should consider trying it.