Follica - Good News!

[Matt27]

Just to touch on the internal vs. topical drug delivery issue for this procedure, check out who Follica just hired:

......Dr. Samir Mitragotri of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), a leading expert in transdermal drug delivery, will join Follica's Scientific Advisory Board.

I think it's pretty safe to say any WNT-signaling and/or EGFR-inhibitor Follica chooses to use will be delivered topically.

 

[Kestrel]

Just to touch on the internal vs. topical drug delivery issue for this procedure, check out who Follica just hired:

......Dr. Samir Mitragotri of the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), a leading expert in transdermal drug delivery, will join Follica's Scientific Advisory Board.

I think it's pretty safe to say any WNT-signaling and/or EGFR-inhibitor Follica chooses to use will be delivered topically.

Also. . . .

"Boston, MA - August 12, 2008 - Follica Inc., a privately held developer of novel therapies for androgenetic alopecia and other hair follicle disorders, today announced an $11 million Series B financing round. Polaris Venture Partners led the financing and existing investors Interwest Partners and PureTech Ventures participated."

Money being raised is always a good sign. The ball is rolling, gents.

 

[messm0rph]

Someone explain my question. Does this mean new hairs will be resistent to DHT?

"Unlike currently available treatments that attempt to retain or re-activate existing follicles, this technology provides for the first time, the potential to stimulate entirely new hair follicles. New hair follicles that form after disruption function normally, cycle through the normal stages of hair growth and exhibit normal architecture, including a full complement of stem cells"

 

[scalpt]

I see this thread has slowed quite a bit. Anyone still experimenting with this? Get any preliminary results? Too soon to tell?

 

[superhl]

I am seeing more vellus hairs. Will regrowth appear as baby hair?

 

[harold]

The problem with nair is that it does not remove the hair from the root but only dissolves the hair above the skin surface, therefore no new hair shaft is created. Instead the old hair shaft just continues to grow, which becomes visible in 1 to 3 days. It has the same effect as shaving and so isn't really effective for our purposes.

RESULTS

[000211 ] To determine whether human skin responded to EDIHN as did mouse skin, human skin was grafted onto SCID (immuno-deficient) mice and subjected to depilation by plucking and wound induction three days later. Seven days following wound induction, formation of new HF was observed in the human skin (Figure 2 IA; arrows indicate new HF) by hematoxylin and eosin staining of paraffin embedded tissue sections.

Yeah its anagen induction that is helpful and that is brought about by plucking but not from destruction of the hair above the dermal papillae. I would love to see something more user-friendly than plucking hairs as this is even less appealing than wouding ones own scalp. Possibly something would have the same effect (cyclosporine or tacrolimus?) but we dont know enough yet I guess.
hh

 

[superhl]

Maybe with all the new hirees at Follica, someone will leak how to do this. I am sure we are missing something. I am not seeing much success but maybe I need to be more patient... As fat as plucking goes, very hard to do with tweezers.

 

[scalpt]

Does minoxidil induce anagen, or just prolong it?

 

[goata007]

Does minoxidil induce anagen, or just prolong it?

I thin it does both...but primarily it prolongs anagen.

 

[goata007]

Maybe with all the new hirees at Follica, someone will leak how to do this. I am sure we are missing something. I am not seeing much success but maybe I need to be more patient... As fat as plucking goes, very hard to do with tweezers.

how many weeks has it been since yoy did the wounding? did you pluck out the vellus hair? what were the drugs that you used?

 

[stjimmy]

what if you have no thick hair on your head, can they make new stem cells to make new hair follicles on the head????

 

[elguapo]

Yep, that's the idea. Follica's solution is to induce new hair growth, almost like a newborn baby's skin, by "injuring" the skin, and tricking it to grow hair follicles rather than regrow hairless skin. At least that's my take on it.

 

[Moomin]

Goata007 you can read his regimen on page 66

 

[superhl]

4 weeks maybe. Somethng I ddi not mention is I washed may hair daily with Nizoral. I immedialely applied DMSO and Lithium afterward washing my scalp. I did not wash my scalp at night. I going to try it again.

 

[goata007]

4 weeks maybe. Somethng I ddi not mention is I washed may hair daily with Nizoral. I immedialely applied DMSO and Lithium afterward washing my scalp. I did not wash my scalp at night. I going to try it again.

well, you certainly didn't use EGFR inhibitor. Plus used nizoral (shouldn't have, at least the days wound was healing) and used lithium only for 3 days, you can try by using lithium for 7 days. Also this time attempt with a chemical peel, instead of sand paper.

 

[superhl]

well, you certainly didn't use EGFR inhibitor. Plus used nizoral (shouldn't have, at least the days wound was healing) and used lithium only for 3 days, you can try by using lithium for 7 days. Also this time attempt with a chemical peel, instead of sand paper

Exactly what do you suggest. Please be more specific! What EGFR inhibitor would you use? Have you had any success?

 

[Noobie]

Maybe with all the new hirees at Follica, someone will leak how to do this. I am sure we are missing something. I am not seeing much success but maybe I need to be more patient... As fat as plucking goes, very hard to do with tweezers.

Why not just wax? Faster but a bit more painful though...

 

[elguapo]

This may have already been posted, but Follica Inc. has updated their website, at least since I searched for it a few months ago:
http://www.follicabio.com/

Kind of an odd picture at the bottom, with the guy looking up at the sky with his eyes closed and his arms open, like Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) on Shawshank Redemption, right after he escaped from prison. =) That will be all of us the day we hear they've found a cure/solution to hair loss!

I hope their method works on humans like it does with mice.

 

[chancer]

More and more im coming to terms with the fact that we the die-hard follically challenged enthusiast won’t be able to get success with our DIY efforts...

follica have definitely thrown everyone off the scent with the masses of variation of drugs, and methods to deliver and time spans used..

its like a murder mystery with hundreds of suspects and little evidence... we aren’t gonna solve this one on the info we’ve been drip fed... its been months since the experiments in this forum and the other reputable forums like hairtalk took place.... nobody has come back with success, and plenty of those who where involved really studied long and hard with great enthusiasm.

there is only one thing left to really try and that is getfitb, and nobody has managed to buy it yet (always being blocked by customs) and if they did, its such a risky drug to try...

looks like we'll all have to cross our fingers and hope some new developments get posted, but i think now that follica have done the clever legal work required and with it done a splendid job of hiding the "secret" formula.... they can keep it very very well hidden until its launch... probably 5 years off when they have fine-tuned and perfected it...

i myself did delipitate and abrade my hairline at the very least...

The hairs i plucked grew back just the same about 4 weeks later, (I can stuffy this accurately has I have new found freckles where hair used to be and used the freckles and landmarks where the hairs were plucked) but it did not encourage and old follicles to kick-start back to life, nor did any new follicles spring up....

 

[Moomin]

Did you only depilate and abrade, if so what makes you think you're going to any results especially if you only did it on the hair line. Also, what do you mean there have been no sucesses, I can think of one poster on here who had noticeable success and there are others on other forums as well.

Also this talk about Follica trying to throw people of the scent by publishing a multitude of drugs is nonsense, that is not the reason they have done it, they're trying to cover all their bases to protect their invention as widely as possible, no conspiracy theories there i'm afraid.

Further, its my understanding that so far no one has actually even replicated the experiment properly once so far, when taking into account legnth of time, correct substances used instead of variables and an even abrasion technique, I should think some people abraded such a small area the correct healing processes didn't take place, despite this people have still had some success.

Finally, why bother spread your pessism on this board, especially since it isn't even based on fact. I should think the reason for this board going a little more quiet than usual is becuase we know the basics of what we should be doing to replicate the experimnet, its now just a case of testing it (which is what I imagine people seriously interested in this method are doing), fine tuning and talking about results and secondary theories. I think anyone who is generally interested in conducting the experiments for themselves can look through the previous pages on this thread and get all the information they need.

So stop your Jibber Jabber and get on with it.