Stanford Scientists Discover Potential Baldness Cure
A recent report in the Stanford Daily newspaper claims that Stanford University researchers may have found a new approach to curing baldness. The report says that research on mice at the Stanford Center for Clinical Science Research is “providing hope for balding humans everywhere.”
Researchers suggest that a protein called Laminin-511 could be used to promote hair growth in humans. Thus far, it has shown positive results when tested on mice, and Dr. Peter Marinkovich thinks it could become available for humans in just two years.
The Laminin-511 protein works at the boundary between the dermis and epidermis layers of the skin, transmitting signals between them. Laminin-511 is naturally found in both mice and humans, according to Marinkovich, who has been researching the protein since 2001.
“It’s exciting,” he said. “It’s not really saving any lives or anything, but hair loss can be devastating to people, even traumatic. [Laminin-511] could improve the quality of life.”
Generally, drug research starts at the disease and moves toward a cure. However, Marinkovich started with the protein and started looking at which diseases it had an effect on.
“It was an accident,” he admitted.
The estimated two-year development time for Laminin-511 will involve petitioning the FDA to start clinical trials and planning a means of safely mass-producing the treatment for the public, Marinkovich said. If the FDA approves the treatment for humans, it could open the doors to further Laminin-related treatments for diseases.
The report added that a Laminin-511 injection could not only help treat baldness but could have potential therapeutic uses for treating cancer.
“Chemo patients have the best chance of responding to Laminin-511,” Marinkovich said.
Link: http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2008/8/7/scientistFindsPotentialSolutionForBaldness
Hair Cloning Has Arrived with Follicular Cell Implantation
Stem cells and dermal papilla cells have been discovered in hair follicles and some researchers predict research on these follicular cells may lead to successes in treating baldness through hair multiplication (HM), also called Hair Cloning.
Hair Cloning is being developed by two independent companies: ARI (Aderans Research Institute, a Japanese owned company in the USA) and Intercytex, a company in Manchester (UK).
On October 2006, Intercytex announced they have successfully tested a method of removing hair follicles from the back of the neck, multiplying them and then reimplanting the cells into the scalp. The initial testing resulted in 70% of male patients regrowing hair. This treatment method is expected to be available to the public by 2010.
In June 2008, Intercytex announced positive results of their Phase II trial for a form of cloning based Hair multiplication technique called follicular cell implantation. The treatment is being hailed as a major advance in hair restoration and is backed by a £1.9 million government grant. The treatment is predicted to be available to patients within 5 years. In the company’s own words:
We have now completed the treatment phase of our Phase II study, being conducted by Dr Bessam Farjo in Manchester, to optimise the delivery of the DP cells.
In this study, hair counts are obtained by shaving and photographing a small section of scalp, injecting it and then applying a specialised image analysis system to provide a total hair count. All 19 subjects in the trial have now been treated using a range of injection and scalp pre-stimulation techniques; the first 6 subjects were injected without stimulation of the scalp. In the remaining 13 the resident hair producing (epithelial) cells were stimulated at the time of delivery of the DP cells.
11 subjects have now passed the 24-week time point since treatment and specialised image analysis at this time point showed:
• Of the group of 6 patients without stimulation of the scalp, 3 had an increased hair count and
two had a reduced hair count; one has been lost to follow-up.• Of the 5 subjects with pre-treatment scalp stimulation, all had increased hair count at 12 weeks and the 3 who were evaluable at 24 weeks all had an increased hair count at that time point.
These data are consistent with the earlier data reported last September and the hypothesis that new hair production is improved by pre-stimulation of the scalp, leading to an interaction between the injected cells and the resident hair producing cells.
24 week data on all subjects in the trial will be available in September 2008 and at the end of the trial photographic data will be analysed from a much larger area of treated scalp on all subjects at 48 weeks.
ICX-TRC overcomes one of the principal drawbacks of conventional transplants which is that the outcome is limited by the amount of donor hair available. By using the Intercytex cell therapy technique almost limitless hair regeneration is possible in a less invasive procedure. Furthermore, treatment can commence early on in the hair loss process with retreatment available in subsequent years. The barrier to commercial success for ICX-TRC is relatively low, being the ability to increase hair count in transplanted or thinning areas.
We believe the continued development of ICX-TRC would best be carried out in partnership with a specialist in the aesthetics field. We do not intend to finance the continuation of clinical and commercial development of ICX-TRC beyond the current Phase II trialand shall seek to sign a partner when we have the complete data package from this trial. Intercytex has granted Bosley, the largest chain of hair transplant clinics in the US, an option to negotiate distribution rights to the product.
Intellectual Property
We have split our cell delivery patent application into three separate applications in the US reflecting additional techniques that are being developed. We have also filed a patent application relating to our observation that epidermal stimulation pre-treatment appears to enhance hair follicle formation.
Two other previously filed patent applications relating to the method of culturing the dermal papilla cells have been published and are undergoing international examination.
Follica Takes in $11 Million for Baldness Treatment Approach
Robert Buderi reports that leading stem cell baldness researchers at the new startup Follica have taken in $11 million in new funding — a sure sign that investors believe the new treatments will be viable. Burderi reports:
If only hair could grow as fast as Follica’s pot of money. Just seven months after its $5.5 million Series A financing round, the Boston-based startup today announced it has raised an additional $11 million to bolster its efforts to develop new methods of treating male- and female-pattern baldness and other hair-follicle disorders such as excessive hair growth and acne. Follica, which confirmed a human pilot study of its hair-regeneration technique is underway, also added several new team members, including veteran life sciences and biotech executive G. Kirk Raab, former CEO of Genentech, who joined the company’s board as chairman.
The Series B round was led by Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, MA (Polaris partner Kevin Bitterman also took a seat on the board), and joined by existing investors Interwest Partners of Dallas and Menlo Park, CA, (which led the Series A round); and founding investor PureTech Ventures, in whose offices Follica is headquartered.
Follica’s main initial focus is developing a treatment for the extremely common form of hair loss called androgenic alopecia—better known as male pattern baldness or female pattern baldness. “This financing will enable us to build out the company and move well down the path towards [regulatory] approval,” says Daphne Zohar, managing director of PureTech Ventures (and an Xconomist). “Our research has been progressing in a very positive way. We have had significant interest from the venture community and while we just closed the Series A round a few months ago, and weren’t planning on bringing in more money for a couple of years, we recognize that additional funds enable us to move more quickly. We have worked with Polaris before and they have been a great partner to us which is why we accelerated the Series B round.” Zohar added that Follica is in the process of transitioning to its own office space, and that it already has independent lab space.
According to Buderi, Follica estimates that the market for an authentic hair rejuvenation treatment would be around $10 BILLION. He had more than 400 comments on an earlier story about the funding for Follica.
Follica’s approach is tied to a discovery that when the skin’s uppermost layers are removed some cells within the wound “revert to a more basic state from which they can develop into either skin or hair,” Buderi says.
For more on the funding side of the story, go here.
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that hair follicles in adult mice regenerate by re-awakening genes once active only in developing embryos. These findings provide unequivocal evidence for the first time that, like other animals such as newts and salamanders, mammals have the power to regenerate. These findings were published in the May 17, 2007 issue of Nature.
A better understanding of this process could lead to novel treatments for hair loss, other skin and hair disorders, and wounds.
“We showed that wound healing triggered an embryonic state in the skin which made it receptive to receiving instructions from wnt proteins,” says senior author George Cotsarelis, MD, Associate Professor of Dermatology. “The wnts are a network of proteins implicated in hair-follicle development.”
Researchers previously believed that adult mammal skin could not regenerate hair follicles. In fact, investigators generally believe that mammals had essentially no true regenerative qualities. (The liver can regenerate large portions, but it is not de novo regeneration; some of the original liver has to remain so that it can regenerate.)
In this study, researchers found that wound healing in a mouse model created an “embryonic window” of opportunity. Dormant embryonic molecular pathways were awakened, sending stem cells to the area of injury. Unexpectedly, the regenerated hair follicles originated from non-hair-follicle stem cells.
“We’ve found that we can influence wound healing with wnts or other proteins that allow the skin to heal in a way that has less scarring and includes all the normal structures of the skin, such as hair follicles and oil glands, rather than just a scar,” explains Cotsarelis.
By introducing more wnt proteins to the wound, the researchers found that they could take advantage of the embryonic genes to promote hair-follicle growth, thus making skin regenerate instead of just repair. Conversely by blocking wnt proteins, they also found that they could stop the production of hair follicles in healed skin.
Increased wnt signaling doubled the number of new hair follicles. This suggests that the embryonic window created by the wound-healing process can be used to manipulate hair-follicle regeneration, leading to novel ways to treat hair loss and hair overgrowth.
These findings go beyond just a possible treatment for male-pattern baldness. If researchers can effectively control hair growth, then they could potentially find cures for people with hair and scalp disorders, such as scarring alopecia where the skin scars, and hair overgrowth.
“This is an extremely exciting discovery and shows promise for treatment of follicular disorders such as hair loss and unwanted excess hair,” noted Dr. Vera Price, co-founder of the National Alopecia Areata Foundation, director of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Hair Research Center and a founding scientific advisory board member of Follica Inc.
“The hair follicle is an elegant structure that plays many different roles for human skin, aside from growing hair,” said Dr. Rox Anderson, Professor of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and founding chairman of Follica’s scientific advisory board. “George Cotsarelis’ insights into the biology of hair follicles provide new strategies for preventing and treating a variety of skin and hair disorders.”
Follica exclusively licensed the technology from The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine where it is the basis of an ongoing development program. The paper’s lead author, Dr. Cotsarelis, is also a co- founder and scientific advisory board member of Follica.
This research was funded in part by the National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskelatal and Skin Disease and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Other co-authors in addition to Cotsarelis are Mayumi Ito, Zaixin Yang, Thomas Andl, Chunhua Cui, Noori Kim, and Sarah E. Millar, all from Penn.
Cotsarelis and Ito are listed as inventors on a patent application related to hair-follicle neogenesis and owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Cotsarelis also serves on the scientific advisory board and has equity in Follica, a start-up company that has licensed the patent from the University of Pennsylvania. Cotsarelis was also a co-founder of Follica.
Baldness breakthrough: Stem cells coaxed into growing hair
It could be the answer to the prayers of millions of men. Scientists have coaxed stem cells into growing hair for the first time.
At present, there are 7.4 million Britons affected by baldness. If they are unhappy about their appearance they are limited to choosing between a comb-over, a toupee or a transplant.
But within a decade, advances in stem cell science could help them to regrow their own hair where it has been lost. Read the rest of this entry »
U.S. Company Promotes Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT)
Follicular unit transplant has become the new standard in hair restoration over the last few years in the field of hair transplantation. Follicular Unit Transplant (FUT) uses hair graft units in their natural grouping for hair transplants. Follicular units consist of one to four terminal hair follicles.
Other than normal hair follicles, each follicular unit consists of sebaceous (oil) glands, a small muscle, tiny nerves and small blood vessels. Every follicular unit is covered by the surrounding sheath that is mainly made of a protein (collagen).
A follicular unit is not only an anatomic unit, but a physiologic one. Preserving other important structures in a follicular unit helps that each hair functions normally and looks natural. This is the basis for modern hair transplant, in which the natural and undetectable results is expected with every hair transplant surgery.
http://www.ushairrestoration.com/follicular-unit-transplant-fut.php
Large-scale Production of Dermal Papilla Microtissues for Hair Follicle Regeneration
Scientists at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, National Taiwan University developed new platform for large-scale production of dermal papilla microtissues for hair follicle regeneration. Dermal papilla is know to be essential for the induction of the regeneration of new hair follicles (so-called hair multiplication) in adult animals and humans.
Major obstacle in achieving effective large-scale hair regeneration platform based on use of dermal papilla induction properties is in inability to efficiently produce dermal papilla aggregates in cell culture.
Now scientists developed cell culture platform when dermal papilla cells are seeded onto poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol) (EVAL) membranes. EVAL facilitates dermal papilla cells self-assembly into many compact spheroidal microtissues that are able to induce new hair follices. This system can be used as part of large-scale efficient hair multiplication protocol.
From Hair Loss News…
Scientists Discover How Hair Regenerates Itself
Hairs are mini-organs that undergo cyclic regeneration throughout adult life and are an important model for organ regeneration.
Hair stem cells located in the follicle bulge are regulated by the surrounding microenvironment, or niche. The activation of such stem cells is cyclic, involving periodic beta-catenin activity.
In experiments with adult mice, scientists discovered that hair regeneration occurs in waves in a follicle population, implying coordination among adjacent follicles and the surrounding environment.
Here we show that unexpected periodic expression of bone morphogenetic protein 2 (Bmp2) and Bmp4 in the dermis regulates this process. This BMP cycle is out of phase with the WNT/beta-catenin cycle, thus dividing the conventional telogen into new functional phases: one refractory and the other competent for hair regeneration, characterized by high and low BMP signalling, respectively. Overexpression of noggin, a BMP antagonist, in mouse skin resulted in a markedly shortened refractory phase and faster propagation of the regenerative wave. Transplantation of skin from this mutant onto a wild-type host showed that follicles in donor and host can affect their cycling behaviours mutually, with the outcome depending on the equilibrium of BMP activity in the dermis. Administration of BMP4 protein caused the competent region to become refractory.
These results show that BMPs may be the long-sought ‘chalone’ inhibitors of hair growth postulated by classical experiments. Taken together, results presented in this study provide an example of hierarchical regulation of local organ stem cell homeostasis by the inter-organ macroenvironment. The expression of Bmp2 in subcutaneous adipocytes indicates physiological integration between these two thermo-regulatory organs. Our findings have practical importance for studies using mouse skin as a model for carcinogenesis, intra-cutaneous drug delivery and stem cell engineering studies, because they highlight the acute need to differentiate supportive versus inhibitory regions in the host skin.
Link: Cyclic dermal BMP signalling regulates stem cell activation during hair regeneration
The Link Between Telomerase Research and Hair Cloning
“Generating hair follicles in hair-free skin wounds is a completely new approach to regrowing hair. It was only with the advent of finasteride and minoxidil and improvements made in hair transplantation techniques in recent years that the new era began, enabling hair loss sufferers to halt the further progression of the balding process and replace the missing hair on top of their head using the hair left at the back of their scalp. NEOSH101 is mainly expected to replace minoxidil and some other, reduced forceful hair growth stimulants.
“Another promising line of development is the telomerase research. The next release is expected in September 2008. Telomerase research could really copper the apple of medicine but its commercial application might be a special decade away.
Read the rest of this entry »
(London) Times: Baldness cure now in sight
Millions of men and women who suffer from premature baldness or hair loss could soon be able to regain their original lustrous locks - by cloning their remaining hair in the laboratory, research suggests.
The new technique, known as “follicular cell implantation”, has already shown positive results in continuing clinical trials on human beings. The work, being carried out by a British team, is being hailed as a major advance in hair restoration and is backed by a £1.9 million government grant.
The cell therapy has the potential to provide a limitless supply of an individual’s hair to replace that lost because of burns, cancer treatment or simply the onset of age, and could be available to patients within five years.
The latest results of the Phase II trial, presented at a conference of leading hair replacement surgeons in Rome, suggest that the technique can increase hair count in at least two thirds of patients after six months, and four out of five if the scalp is stimulated beforehand through gentle abrasions that encourage hair growth.
The new technique involves extracting dermal papilla (DP) cells, the basic cells responsible for hair growth, from a sample of only about 100 hairs from the back of the scalp – the area where hair usually continues to grow despite losses in other areas. These cells are then multiplied many times over in a special patented culture before being injected back into the scalp in their millions, stimulating the formation of new hair follicles or rejuvenating those that have stopped producing hair on the top of the head. Read the rest of this entry »
Scientists develop gene therapy for baldness
Scientists from the University of Pennsylvania say they may have overcome one of hair care’s biggest obstacles, by developing a means of creating new hair cells on the skin of mice. The research team said, in an article published in the journal Nature that in generating the new hair cells, it had defied previous belief that this feat was impossible.
Likewise, the research team also says that the technology could help in formulating skin care products for wound-healing, a secondary research channel to the baldness study.
The study found that, when the skin of mice is wounded, epidermal cells can respond by assuming the same properties as stem cells that generate hair follicles. This eventually led to the growth of new hair.
The team believes that this discovery could mean that older men with established hair loss could eventually be treated to restore their hair successfully.
The research team removed patches of skin from the mice and then studied the wounds as they healed during the course of several weeks.
During this process, cells not previously associated with hair follicles began to express genes found in stem cells that can give way to hair follicles as they develop.
The result was that in the samples, hair growth occurred regardless of the mouse’s age. Although it was also noted that there was no pigment in the hair follicles.
Further to this, the researchers found that the effect was boosted by using mice that had been genetically engineered to produce higher levels of proteins. These activate the genetic pathway underpinning the transformation of follicle stem cells.
The genetically engineered mice then went on to develop twice the density of hair follicles to that found in the untreated mice.
George Cotsarerlis, head of the research team, stated that he now wants to mimic this same process in human skin samples, envisaging a treatment similar to dermabrasion, combined with a topical cream to stimulate the proteins necessary to activate the genetic pathway.
“It’s all preliminary at the moment,” said Costsarelis. “If it all went perfectly then possibly in two to three years we would have a product, but that’s very optimistic.”
However, despite the relatively cautious outlook, the results of the study have given the team the confidence to form a company, Follica, which aims to spearhead bringing the treatment to market.
In parallel to the potential baldness cure, the research team is investigating new insights into skin functions, highlighting the powers of regeneration on the back of the skin wound healing process.
Currently there are a plethora of hair care solution that target baldness, including creams, lotions, shampoos, conditioners, as well as oral treatments like Finasteride and surgical treatments.
Originally posted here.