Tsuji Interview Incoming - Ask Your Questions Now!

[Torin]

i feel with tsuji it's not a matter of if, but a matter of when. he's aiming for much more than just hair growth, this is just one of the first steps towards his vision.

The new hair also needs to look the part. It has to look completely natural.

The pictures of the mice just shows a very small thatch of short, rodent hair.

At this point, none of us know how this process would appear in its entirety on a human scalp (say to bring a full nw7 back to nw1).

Could it faithfully recreate hair whorls in the crown for example?

In unrelated work by Dr. G. Cotsarelis, he believes that by using his wounding method, the direction of the new hair follicles would be directly influenced by cellular processes underneath the skin. This would enable the newly formed follicles to grow at the correct angle based on their location on the scalp.

This is definitely an attractive element of Cotsarelis's method, that the de novo hair's direction would be the same as that of previously lost hair, thus retaining your own natural growth pattern.

In Dr. Tsuji's work, will the the direction of the new hair growth be solely dependent on the clinician's placement of the hair germs (and too their level of artistry). OR will naturally occuring cellular processes underneath the skin influence the direction of the new hair growth?

 

[Bill Sussman]

I think that i read with the mice, it followed an identical hair cycle to that of other mice. Which is a good sign. The only things i'm concerned about are as you said the natural look of it, and the possibility of the shedding part of the cycle lining up so mass shedding occurs, which would be a real pain in the ***.

 

[That Guy]

Stoked for this interview. I feel like a kid who sent a letter to Santa and Santa is going to write back.

and then in a few years I don't just get presents, I get to visit the whole damn workshop.

 

[Bill Sussman]

I feel like me as a kid discovering my first boner

 

[Bill Sussman]

I'm so fkkn stoked. happy midnight from Central US. gonna be a great fkkn week gents.

 

[hidden]

when is the interview ?

The most important question is if this method's outcome will look natural or hair transplant's like

 

[Bill Sussman]

well, the treatment allows for a basically unlimited donor supply, so the appearance of natural density shouldn't be an issue. the major concerns in my mind as mentioned before is the direction of the implanted follicles to grow in a "natural pattern" as far as a natural look goes, and the possibility of mass shedding due to hair follicle cycles lining up in unison. i am positive that tsuji and his team have already taken this into consideration and are carefully designing the equipment to make this "natural look". that's probably why the equipment process is taking another year or so, due to the fact that if they were simply doing straight injections on a mass scale, it would look unrealistic. therefore, the three companies are possibly working on making specific equipment for each of the different areas of the scalp (hairline, crown, cowlick area etc..) to inject the cells in these patterns for a natural look. if that is solved, with unlimited density i don't see how this can't look almost perfectly natural.

 

[Tomtom21]

So whats the final 10 questions? @Admin and do you know when the interview will happen this week?

 

[Bill Sussman]

btw, this is from kyocera's update 2 weeks ago
"Kyocera is responsible for technical aspects such as the development of cell processing devices. While various methods are under evaluation, Kyocera’s piezoelectric technology is of particular interest as a means of discharging small amounts of viscid cells in a precise manner during the cell processing process."

so it looks as if they are already taking into consideration the growth patterns on different areas of the scalp

 

[Blackber]

btw, this is from kyocera's update 2 weeks ago
"Kyocera is responsible for technical aspects such as the development of cell processing devices. While various methods are under evaluation, Kyocera’s piezoelectric technology is of particular interest as a means of discharging small amounts of viscid cells in a precise manner during the cell processing process."

so it looks as if they are already taking into consideration the growth patterns on different areas of the scalp

I think that's a bit of a stretch to assume lol but hopefully they take that into account at some point.

 

[Bill Sussman]

i'm more referring to Tsuji's team and the natural look of hair growth, regarding direction and such. I am positive that they haven't overlooked that aspect and is one of the major hurdles for them. As far as the equipment goes, they just made this agreement a month or so ago, so they are probably in the earliest stages.

 

[mr_robot]

btw, this is from kyocera's update 2 weeks ago
"Kyocera is responsible for technical aspects such as the development of cell processing devices. While various methods are under evaluation, Kyocera’s piezoelectric technology is of particular interest as a means of discharging small amounts of viscid cells in a precise manner during the cell processing process."

so it looks as if they are already taking into consideration the growth patterns on different areas of the scalp

I'm pretty sure I've comment on this before but by piezoelectric technology they mean like inkjet printers deposit drops of ink onto paper. This has nothing to do with the scalp, it's to do with depositing the cultered cells in a grid like formation so that they can combine to create the new germs. Currently they are doing this by hand one hair germ at a time, so this is about automating the process to create thousands of germs very quickly.

 

[hidden]

A reply from Riken : [removed email so they dont get spammed by bots]

“Regarding your inquiry, the joint research project that was announced in July is still in early stages of research. The work with hair follicle regeneration is led by the Laboratory for Organ Regeneration, but this is still work carried out in animal models. The team must now try to make their approach suitable for uses in humans. This requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. Before any method is established as treatment, it must also go through clinical research trials or clinical trials to confirm safety and efficacy of the procedure, and to receive approval from the appropriate regulatory organizations. Research, unfortunately, does not always progress as fast or as easy as one hopes, and thus it is difficult to confidently say when and if this join research will reach the stage that it can be used in humans.

The process they are proposing to use is taking a few hair follicle samples from a patient, extracting and isolate mesenchymal stem cells and epithelial stem cells from the hair follicles, and using a method that the lab developed to culture these two cell types to generate many follicular primordium, which will be transplanted into the hair loss area, using methods similar to current hair transplantation methods, and the transplanted follicular primordium should generate hair shafts.

We hope this helps answer your questions.

Sincerely,
Developmental Biology Planning Office (Research Communications)
RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology

 

[Pray The Bald Away]

A reply from Riken : [removed email so they dont get spammed by bots]

“Regarding your inquiry, the joint research project that was announced in July is still in early stages of research. The work with hair follicle regeneration is led by the Laboratory for Organ Regeneration, but this is still work carried out in animal models. The team must now try to make their approach suitable for uses in humans. This requires a tremendous amount of time and effort. Before any method is established as treatment, it must also go through clinical research trials or clinical trials to confirm safety and efficacy of the procedure, and to receive approval from the appropriate regulatory organizations. Research, unfortunately, does not always progress as fast or as easy as one hopes, and thus it is difficult to confidently say when and if this join research will reach the stage that it can be used in humans.

The process they are proposing to use is taking a few hair follicle samples from a patient, extracting and isolate mesenchymal stem cells and epithelial stem cells from the hair follicles, and using a method that the lab developed to culture these two cell types to generate many follicular primordium, which will be transplanted into the hair loss area, using methods similar to current hair transplantation methods, and the transplanted follicular primordium should generate hair shafts.

We hope this helps answer your questions.

Sincerely,
Developmental Biology Planning Office (Research Communications)
RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology

It's a canned response. They've been giving the same one to everybody.

 

[jd_uk]

Reading this confirms my opinion thst it is at least a decade off being available comercially to the general public and probably longer to become affordable.

 

[GoldenMane]

Tsuji will come through for balding humanity. Everything else will be a stopgap at best and overpriced/under deliver at worst

 

[Bill Sussman]

how do you get 'at least a decade' from that? You are overanalyzing it as it doesn't confirm anything. It wouldn't be wise for them to give anything other than a cryptic general message because doing so would get them harassed endlessly by people like you and I. The truth is this. They are AIMING for 2020 release, and AIMING for clinical trials to be conducted in the fiscal year 2019 (Apr 1, 2018-Mar 31, 2019). That is the only thing that is confirmed. That is it. It has been said twice at a month apart between 2 separate press releases. Everything else is just speculation and the last thing they have time for is to give personalized emails to people like us asking them the same questions over and over. That's why Tsuji is agreeing to this interview to answer some of these specific questions that are non speculative. They are to busy to coddle our skepticism. Nothing else will be confirmed until clinical trials are conducted.

 

[pegasus2]

The only thing I read into that response is that they've already solved the problem of expanding the epithelial bulge. That was the most uncertain hurdle. The rest should be relatively easy.

 

[Bill Sussman]

yeahhhh buddy!!!

 

[NormanNorwood]

Is this gunna work for people with DUPA?

And surely he can't make something 'available' to the public and then have it crazy expensive? It would be useless then if it was the 'wonder cure' and no one could afford it..

Poor people go bald to you know