ACELL Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

[Swoosh-X]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Obviously $10 is way too expensive for a mass market procedure, but this is basically the pre-release cost.

This is something that Cooley isn't even advertising as a finished procedure yet, though we need to keep in mind this is just the beta stage.

Even with mega session FUEs, most docs drop the price to a lower rate once you agree to have more than a certain number of grafts, that also probably would be the case with this procedure.

The other interesting thing that Cooley and Hitzig have both said that's kinda been overshadowed is that regular hair grafts when dipped in Acell and implanted into recipient sites appear to grow thicker and are perhaps stimulating surrounding hair growth.

So you could mix and match I suppose, FUE for the hairline and then autocloning for density down the line.

The other important thing is that new FUE devices are in development to make FUE easier/cheaper/faster to do ... so a device that could do that in conjunction with autocloning would be absolutely dynamite.

 

[waynakyo]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

cost..cost..cost, as always.. you guys discussed the cost of Intercytex too remember ? waste of time.
can you guys ^%$&#^$ calm down, and at least discuss the validity of the procedure. It is not fully proven, there are questions left unanswered. Regrading cost i can assure you: This does not look like a procedure that is extremely costly for the doctor and the cost will come down, ENOUGH ABOUT COST.!!

I am wondering if this procedure can generate 2-3 hairs follicles, as I think he said this generate one hair follicle.. what do you do to get 3 hais ? pluck 3 hairs ? I don t think so.

From the video/pictures, the hair look very thin to me. I think we will all need to see mroe results, and even successful mega sessions hopefully before we say this is it.

PS: notice how everyone made fun of Dr Gho, and he ended up being an important reference for Dr Cooley, if you have seen his presentation.

 

[Orin]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Has there been any information regarding the structure of the follicle in the biopsy? I'm specifically talking about the number of hairs.

It's terrific that the transplanted hair is indistinguishable from other hair in term of quality, but what would be truly incredible, would be if the new follicles had the capacity to sprout 2-3 hairs in the manner that traditional FUE/transplants do.

It would make this procedure the prefered way of going about things, if near-unlimited donor area and a significantly lessened work-load wasn't enticing enough.

I wouldn't be surprised if many hair transplant doctors started tinkering with this, on or off the record. They have most of the expertise needed, Acell is easily obtainable, and the overall approach hangs in that desirable state of "almost there but needs some finetuning"

I predict we'll see a stream of creatively written patents in a year. On the other hand, few - if any - doctors have tried to put their own brand-name on FUE methods, though that's more or less a standardized procedure, while this is a little hazy at the moment.

 

[Orin]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I want to add that cost is a legitimate concern, and one that's important to raise.

If this works as well as it seems to, we move away from worrying about wheter or not it's even possible to do something substantial about hairloss, and into the actual reality of the situation.

I'm sure most people are happy about this discovery, but the reality is such that it will probably take several years before the procedure has gained enough traction to be available to most continents, and I'm a little worried that it will take an additional couple of years before the procedure is moved out of the premium/novelty price-range.

Hearing the actual researchers take on how they think this will play out economically is just as important as the procedure's efficiency. Right now we're stuck between low-cost approaches like propecia/minoxodil that give mediocre results, or high-cost solutions like FUE that, while more substantial, are also prohibitively expensive.

Since this procedure still requires artistry and surgery - however minor - it may never follow the trajectory down to mass-market satisfaction that botox and acid-dermabrasion has.

It's a bit of a downer to start talking about price, but it is the reality of things. While I'm pessimistic about price, I'm still happy that we're in the position of actually talking about price as it pertains to something tangible, as opposed to just talking about hypothetical treatments.

 

[Skywalker]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I predict we'll see a stream of creatively written patents in a year.

You might be right, I hope they are not upheld, that could really stifle development

 

[Orin]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I predict we'll see a stream of creatively written patents in a year.

You might be right, I hope they are not upheld, that could really stifle development

I don't think it will, and even if it is, you can only patent the way you go about it, not the actual components. If I remember correctly, Acell is not a unique compound.

Basically, if you find yourself blocked by some petty patent, you just use a custom blend of the ingredients in Acell and voila - new way of doing it.

Someone with a much better grasp at patent-law is welcome to strenghten/puncture this argument, but considering that traditional transplants have world-wide spread, and aren't prohibited to a select few, you'd think this is the way this procedure will shake out. I guess you can argue that it's so close to a traditional transplant that it's not unique enough to qualify for a patent.

It is more likely that the instruments used for extracting the plucked hair with maximum outer cell-layer intact is what's going to be patented, like the instruments for FUE extraction is. That just goes under normal operating cost, and not something that will impact the price much.

The most expensive part will always be the surgeon's time - not his instruments.

 

[Swoosh-X]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I believe right now he's getting 1 hair per incision, but he's experimenting with getting 2-3 (ala a full graft) as well.

For me it would still probably work well because I have thick black hair (Asian descent tend to have thicker hair). For someone with thinner blonde hair it may be a bit of an issue.

I would still probably either way go with FUE on the hair line and then use auto clone hair as filler.

 

[miozambrotta19]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Dr Cooley has said that there able to duplicate a hair, not multiply. In my opinion this technique will not go far unless there able to get 1-3 hairs from a plucked hair, as Fue does.
Cost is important. Only a few people at this point would be able to afford such a procedure at $10 a hair. Even if your hair is super thick.... one hair grafts across the entire scalp would look very un natural. So even if someone had $100,000 to blow on 4,000 grafts(around 10,000) hairs, the cosmetic result would be unappealing to the eye. Yes this is a big step, but unless there able to multiply hairs or lower the cost to $2 a pluck then this will not be something to consider. Still a long way to go for this to be something a hair loss person could even consider. Will hairs last a cycle? Can they reach a higher outcome in hairs growing in recipient area? Can they multiply a hair? Will the cost be lowered so a bigger market can be opened?

So many questions with no answers at this time. We'll have to wait and see what happens

 

[cuebald]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Here's an image I stole from another board that I have attached.
[attachment=0:1a99zzkk]HAIR.jpg[/attachment:1a99zzkk]
The way I read it, is that the plucked hair must have this surrounding tissue ("epithelial tissue") and be treated with Acell, or no replacement hair will grow. You can pluck a hair out and sometimes it will have this tissue, sometimes it will not.
I don't know what the Acell treatment is, or what it actually does to the plucked hair.

Also, you can't implant this plucked hair anywhere you want - it won't grow. You must implant this plucked hair into a pre-existing follicle (such as the thousands of damaged/atrophied follicles caused by male pattern baldness) or no hair will grow. It seems that the plucked hair and the Acell treatment will "regenerate" the male pattern baldness-damaged follicle (it will not "grow" a follicle from scratch).
Perhaps this is what Dr Gho's treatment sometimes inadvertently did? (with Dr Gho not really understanding why only very few grafts worked)

You can pluck scalp hair (and most body hairs) 20+ times before damage starts to show. (eyebrow hair seems most susceptible to damage - 5 plucks and some will never grow again).
So I could easily see how you could pluck 2000 of someone's donor, implant those, then wait a month for those plucked hairs to grow back and repeat the process. You could do this 20 times for 40,000 grafts with no depletion of donor hair.
If you could repeat this process with "regenerated hair" (i.e. pluck a regenerated hair and use it to regenerate another hair) you could have infinite donor.

If this regenerated hair only lasts for one cycle, then the treatment to me becomes a lot more useless. By the time you've had enough "grafts" to give you a full head, the first set of grafts would be falling out, and you would always have a patchy head of Telogen Effluvium like hair.
The Epithelium layer of cells is what actually creates hair, and this layer is what is implanted along with the plucked follicle. You would hope that this layer of cells becomes "part" of the damaged recipient follicle, and would grow hair anew. It would suck if, that, when the regenerated hair reaches telogen and falls out, no new hair growth starts.
Only the pluck test (or time) will determine that. That I think is the major question regarding this treatment over wether the new hair is donor dominant or not.

If it is DHT succeptible, but lasts more than one cycle, I don't really see a major problem. Just take Finasteride. If not, who knows, maybe if you started balding at 30, you might get 12 years of hair before DHT's damage becomes apparent again.

 

[Orin]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Interesting.

I didn't know it needed to be inserted into a pre-existing follicle. Seems like it immediately becomes a very time-consuming task. I'm guessing the current success-rate is a combination of percentage of intact epithelial tissue + how close you have inserted the plucked hair into a pre-existing follicle.

I found it odd that there was stated room for improvement at all, and just assumed that the main hurdle was extracting a hair with maximum amount of intact epithelial tissue. I guess it's more complicated than that.

Does anyone know if epithelial tissue is "blank", so to speak? While doing my laundry (and still under the impression that this was a "insert it anywhere and it grows" kind of deal) I tried to recap all the ways these companies have evolved their approaches, and how one has lead to another.

It started with multiplying cells from donor-hair and then inject it. Little to no results. Next they tried pre-stimulating the recipient area (to create a triving environment, "the embryonic window") before injecting. Better, but apparently still a little rough. Now we're at a point - I believe - where they pre-stimulate, inject, but also add some kind of artificial scaffolding for the cells to cling to.

In a way this plucked hair technique is very similar in approach, and it seems more and more clear that structure is very important if new hair is to be created. I was wondering if it's possible to artificially construct a hollow structure of epithelial tissue.

If they're "blank" and worked with everyone you could basically bypass most of the labour, and drastically cut down cost by massproducing them.

I'm guessing this is not the case though, and even if it were, you'd be in a quagmire of cloning ethics nonsense. We barely allow people to use their own cells as it is.

Some kind of convergence of different methods and approaches is the most likely solution as I see it, but it unfortunately means we might have to wait out this initial wave of exciting research, and wait another 10-12 years for someone to pick up the ball and run the last couple of meters.

Hopefully I am as wrong as one can be on this one, but while a lot of research show promising signs, there are also some hurdles that keep the results from being as excellent as they - in theory - should be.

 

[miozambrotta19]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Also, you can't implant this plucked hair anywhere you want - it won't grow. You must implant this plucked hair into a pre-existing follicle (such as the thousands of damaged/atrophied follicles caused by male pattern baldness) or no hair will grow.

Could you tell me where you heard this from.? From the interviews and presentation this wasnt mentioned, so i was wondering if i missed something.

 

[Kube8]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

This is not new information. Acell has been around for a while supposedly recreating other organs and what not. I have not read a lot about these updates or many of the replies to this, but it seems like it would be incredibly time consuming to gain a full head of hair.

I mean think about the timeline. You have to be "plucked" and transplanted first... then wait until you've "healed" with the matristem.... then plucked again. It would take forever! I don't know if they plan on doing big strips of donor hair or the single hair plucking approach, but still. I don't want to be walking around as an open wound for all that time... yuck.

Also, I can't see how this would be affordable at all. This seems like an exceptionally time consuming procedure like typical hair transplant. The doctor would have to spend a lot of time plucking and planting as opposed to Histogen's approach of a few injections (not that it's going to work either at this point). Do you really want to live life as a pincushion for however long it takes?

I am just becoming increasingly frustrated with all this junk.

 

[Orin]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

This is not new information. Acell has been around for a while supposedly recreating other organs and what not. I have not read a lot about these updates or many of the replies to this, but it seems like it would be incredibly time consuming to gain a full head of hair.

I mean think about the timeline. You have to be "plucked" and transplanted first... then wait until you've "healed" with the matristem.... then plucked again. It would take forever! I don't know if they plan on doing big strips of donor hair or the single hair plucking approach, but still. I don't want to be walking around as an open wound for all that time... yuck.

Also, I can't see how this would be affordable at all. This seems like an exceptionally time consuming procedure like typical hair transplant. The doctor would have to spend a lot of time plucking and planting as opposed to Histogen's approach of a few injections (not that it's going to work either at this point). Do you really want to live life as a pincushion for however long it takes?

I am just becoming increasingly frustrated with all this junk.

I think you misunderstand how it works. The hairs are plucked (just like you can do yourself, no open wound or anything) with as much epithelial tissue intact as possible. It looks like a transparent layer over the end of the hair. There's no blood and no damaged tissue.

The plucked hairs are soaked in Acell, and then inserted on top, which most likely would be in insertion holes that are even smaller than FUE, as they are single hair, and there's no surrounding "meaty" tissue.

I think you're actually thinking about those Acell-pictures of horses/dogs with horrible wounds that healed very nicely, fur and all. Those cases did require an open wound for the damage to be healed, as the depth of the wound was so severe.

For the record, another hair transplant-doctor did an in-office reconstruction of this method with a patient that had a bad strip-wound. If I remember correctly, it did not regrow any significant hair, but I think it made the wound smoother, which is in line with how the compound has been used when treating other injuries in humans.

It's just one patient but I think, as you pointed out, the inconveniences of that approach makes it impossible to sell as an idea even if it worked alright. Horses don't have to go to work and explain their gaping, therapeutic wound

But this plucked-hair procedure is very different.

 

[andrei_eremenko]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

In my opinion it is still far to call this a success...since I have problems with hair I noticed that at every year there are some rumours ...some news about things looking promising...but nothing more...nothing can cure the hair loss right now...still thinking that we need at least 10 years from now on to have something to cure this crap...Personally I am not going to waste any money on this kind of procedures...I will spend my money only when the hair multiplication will be available if that will be ever possible!
so far histogen and aderans are doing some trials...they didn't offered any updates since 6 months I think...follica and trichosciene are looking like they have already quit doing progress and researching! so not too much hope for the coming future...

 

[miozambrotta19]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I dont under the logic in waiting years for something to come out, when something tangible is available today. Why waist 10-20 year of your life looking at yourself in th mirror and disliking what you see. There are thousands if not millions of people in ther 20's who suffer from depression and low self esteem do to baldness. Why should they wait 10 years and "hope" for a cure to come out when something is available today. Yes there are questions to be answered on this technique, but if hairs cycle and cost is brought down why not go for it. I sure will go for it.

 

[andrei_eremenko]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

wait ...is this available and working 100% and I don't know? and can this procedure make a norwood 5-6 to become a norwood 1? I am goint to be a norwood 5 at least according my relatives baldness...so why should I put my trust in something that will not bring all of my hair back?

 

[miozambrotta19]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

Theoretically this can make a high norwood into a norwood 1. Its not at %100 , but %75 is a pretty good start for a novelty procedure. If hairs cycle, it could bring all your hairs back and more. Wouldn't you get this done if they said hairs will cycle normally? or would you rather wait another 10 years and hope for something to come out? Hey, don't get me wrong, i respect your opinion, but if in a year or so they tell me that hairs will cycle normally I dont see why anyone would wait for Histogen or Aderans to come out with a product. Some people are desperate and would do anything.

 

[miozambrotta19]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

If Dr Cooley says that "Epithelial cells" are needed to form the functioning follice, cant he try to culture these cells, add Acell and then inject into the scalp?
Im no scientist, but could it be something that could be done, or at least tried?

 

[andrei_eremenko]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

I didn't pay attention to this too much...but I will...and then I can discuss much more about this...

 

[andrei_eremenko]

Re: Looks promising!!! What do u guys think of this?

ok...I read something about this procedure...it looks promising...but I am wondering what would be the cost? and what would be the succes rate ? I mean all the hairs implanted with acell coating will grow?
anyway if the procedure will succeed to bring back a head full of hair with something like 20 000 dollars would be great!