Stemson is going to use minipigs in the next stage of their hair cloning research

Gegen

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You are right in the first sentence, but there are more than Wnt/Shh to create a terminal hair.
Yeah, but that was my principal point. We don't have to "create" terminal hair, we have to wake them up with some growth factors (Mnx, Wnt agonists, estrogens) and maintain with AA or 5AR blockers.
 

Armando Jose

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Yeah, but that was my principal point. We don't have to "create" terminal hair, we have to wake them up with some growth factors (Mnx, Wnt agonists, estrogens) and maintain with AA or 5AR blockers.
Yes, wake them is a good chance, but we need know the real initial cause of the problem. Imo androgens are vital for a healthy hair and DHT is present in scalp hairs of childrens years before puberty. So mantain with AA is erroneous
 

jan_miezda

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more research need to be done on the dermal sheath cup. How will the presence of gremlin molecule change in a minaturized hair follicle vs healthy one? what causes it levels to drop? The sheath cup maintain DP cell cluster activity in the hair follicle

"gremilin-2, a member of the bone morphogenetic protein antagonists, was found by in situ hybridization to be highly specific to the dermal sheath cup, implying that gremlin-2 is a key molecule contributing to maintenance of the properties of the dermal sheath cup."



Yes, wake them is a good chance, but we need know the real initial cause of the problem. Imo androgens are vital for a healthy hair and DHT is present in scalp hairs of childrens years before puberty. So mantain with AA is erroneous
 

eeyore

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What do you guys think Stemson's potential product would have to go through in terms of trials for US regulations? According to this article: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/resear...-regenerative-medicine-will-improve-oversight do you think it'd be likely their solution would involve "minimally-manipulated" cells and thus qualify as a middle-tier product and not have to go through the full 10+ years of trials? From what they've stated so far, their solution does seem to meet most of the criteria for being a "middle-tier" product but mainly hinges upon whether the cloned follicles can be defined as "minimally manipulated" cells.
 
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Chads don't bald

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A hair follicle doesn't die unless you disintegrate/burn your skin. Also, we know that Wnt and/or Shh agonists can create new hair with a good method and dosage.
Does this mean hair follicles just become dormant? Theoretically we can get full restoration even from NW7 if we could somehow activate those follicles again?
 

Armando Jose

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gremlin-2 is a key molecule contributing to maintenance of the properties of the dermal sheath cup
In the interesting paper: "In the present study, 3 genes, GREM2, retinoic acid binding protein 4, together with the Wnt signalling molecule TLE4, showed relative higher expression levels in the DSC compared with the DP or DS"


Another player, of more than hundred one
(Table 3. Molecular mediators of hair follicle growth)
Paper published the first day of this century give me hope but we burnt a 20% of it without breackout results

Controls of hair follicle cycling​


Does this mean hair follicles just become dormant? Theoretically we can get full restoration even from NW7 if we could somehow activate those follicles again?
This is the holly grial
 
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jan_miezda

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Why didn’t stemson show proof of concept using human epithelial cells yet? Will they use human e.c during the pig trials?
 

werefckd

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5 years is too optimistic. This isn't some unmet medical need that would allow them to fast track. You're looking at 7-10 imo without trial setbacks.
Stemson is considering the UK market as a way of fast tracking. Their regulatory background would allow that under the "specials" category.

What they are trying to do is very ambitious and very challenging, so lots of stuff can go wrong. But they are on the right direction. My main concern is that despite them being relatively well funded for a hair loss research co, compared to other players in the bio tech field what they have in the bank is peanuts.

If they got some serious funding they could hire more talent and do more experiments at the same time, and this would increase their speed and their chances of success a lot.
 

trialAcc

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Stemson is considering the UK market as a way of fast tracking. Their regulatory background would allow that under the "specials" category.

What they are trying to do is very ambitious and very challenging, so lots of stuff can go wrong. But they are on the right direction. My main concern is that despite them being relatively well funded for a hair loss research co, compared to other players in the bio tech field what they have in the bank is peanuts.

If they got some serious funding they could hire more talent and do more experiments at the same time, and this would increase their speed and their chances of success a lot.
Funding for these types of things comes in stages though. If they progress without major setbacks the funding will come with it.
 

werefckd

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Funding for these types of things comes in stages though. If they progress without major setbacks the funding will come with it.
Agreed, but they could have received more funding for the stage they currently are at. For example. Moderna already had a billion of funding before they had any working product. For what Stemson is doing and the potential impact, 100 million dollars already raised would be more on par.

And remember that more money now increased the chances they progress to the next stage.
 

trialAcc

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Agreed, but they could have received more funding for the stage they currently are at. For example. Moderna already had a billion of funding before they had any working product. For what Stemson is doing and the potential impact, 100 million dollars already raised would be more on par.

And remember that more money now increased the chances they progress to the next stage.
Agreed, actually. I didn't realize they only had 7.5 mil of funding and only as a seed round. That is incredibly low and wont carry them through any human trials. I'm pretty surprised at this to be honest, I don't understand how they were planning to be in human trials around this time (pre delay) without additional funding.

7.5m is like rent for lab/equipment and salary for a couple months. Hardly trial ready.
 

werefckd

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Agreed, actually. I didn't realize they only had 7.5 mil of funding and only as a seed round. That is incredibly low and wont carry them through any human trials. I'm pretty surprised at this to be honest, I don't understand how they were planning to be in human trials around this time (pre delay) without additional funding.

7.5m is like rent for lab/equipment and salary for a couple months. Hardly trial ready.
This amount of money is supposed to carry them until pre clinical studies tops, for clinical trials they will definitely need to raise more money, even before that I think. Anyways, they already got more money than Tsuji and all the other previous HM/HC players I think, which is good. But if you look at the big biotech picture they are severely underfunded.
 

-G-

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Agreed, actually. I didn't realize they only had 7.5 mil of funding and only as a seed round. That is incredibly low and wont carry them through any human trials. I'm pretty surprised at this to be honest, I don't understand how they were planning to be in human trials around this time (pre delay) without additional funding.

7.5m is like rent for lab/equipment and salary for a couple months. Hardly trial ready.

Do you think individuals would want to donate some money?
 

trialAcc

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This amount of money is supposed to carry them until pre clinical studies tops, for clinical trials they will definitely need to raise more money, even before that I think. Anyways, they already got more money than Tsuji and all the other previous HM/HC players I think, which is good. But if you look at the big biotech picture they are severely underfunded.
Yeah might be because Tsuji is surgical and there really isn't very much appeal in that for mass commercialization. On top of the surgical aspect of it, you'd also have to gamble with how skilled your surgeon would be at making it look natural. Anyone who knows the hair transplant industry knows how many doctors completely fail at this.

Injections that grow back a legitimate head of hair in a natural pattern? Every bald guy with money will be lined up.
 

-G-

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I mean, maybe? But why? They will get all the funding they need from VC firms if this has real promise.

I only ask this, because we, we the general bald or going bald population talk a big game but never deliver. We spend $100s on snake oil, hundreds on hope (I mean if you quantify the hours), but never actually put our money where our mouth is.

There was a funding by hairclone - although perhaps all the details were not clear i.e., was it a proudct/proof of concepts, etc.

This seems to be very promising, why would anybody not want to contribute to that? I mean I have no issue flushing away $100 for this in the hope that it would come to fruition.

The problem with VC's is that what if it does not happen, what if they miss the ball or the mark in terms of funding. Like with histogen.

If we want more results we have to put it out more.
 

trialAcc

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I only ask this, because we, we the general bald or going bald population talk a big game but never deliver. We spend $100s on snake oil, hundreds on hope (I mean if you quantify the hours), but never actually put our money where our mouth is.

There was a funding by hairclone - although perhaps all the details were not clear i.e., was it a proudct/proof of concepts, etc.

This seems to be very promising, why would anybody not want to contribute to that? I mean I have no issue flushing away $100 for this in the hope that it would come to fruition.

The problem with VC's is that what if it does not happen, what if they miss the ball or the mark in terms of funding.

If we want more results we have to put it out more.
This company likely needs just shy of 100 million to push this to commercialization if it's similar to other drug trials, so yeah if we could get 1 million people to donate that amount we should be able to help haha.

The point stands though, VC firms will fund this if it looks promising. The reason nothing has materialized to date is because "10% more hair" with X side effects doesn't really attract big ticket investors. What Stemson is basically saying they are working for is a legitimate cure for those already bald/ing.

There is a big craze in the biotech industry right now for VC firms to fund companies that are proposing 1 time curative treatments. Billions are flowing into the gene therapy space. It will find funding if it works.
 

trialAcc

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@trialAcc what you say sounds very logical. What do you think of the science of Tissuse? do you think their approach is promising? Asking you because I have a feeling that you have aclue
If you're referring to the company that's making synesthetic human testing platforms for drug models, I think it has the potential to be ground breaking, same goes for the ability to use AI learning models to emulate human trials.

I have no idea how far out those would be from practical use, though.
 

werefckd

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Yeah might be because Tsuji is surgical and there really isn't very much appeal in that for mass commercialization. On top of the surgical aspect of it, you'd also have to gamble with how skilled your surgeon would be at making it look natural. Anyone who knows the hair transplant industry knows how many doctors completely fail at this.

Injections that grow back a legitimate head of hair in a natural pattern? Every bald guy with money will be lined up.
Stemson is doing something similar to what Tsuji proposed. It will work as a traditional hair transplant in the front end of things - only grafts harvested will me unlimited. It won't be injections, hair transplant surgeons will be used to implant the "cloned" (bioengineered) hair grafts. Stemson even has 2 hair transplant surgeons in the board of advisers. So Stemson will be "surgical" too.

Regarding funding for commercialization, their business partner (and investor) Allergan is there to address exactly that.
 
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