Brief Items of Interest, August 2017

A few days later than usual due to the major new developments that I had to discuss in my prior two posts.

Hair loss news first:

— I covered an interesting “COOL” new company named PolarityTE last month. A new article about the company mentions a possible product rollout in early 2018. Although focused on regenerating the skin (especially for burn victims), the technology will also include hair regeneration on the new skin.

— I covered Dr. Lu Le and his team’s groundbreaking discovery related to the biological processes behind both hair loss and grey hair in a post from May of this year. Now their local Dallas newspaper has much more detailed coverage of Dr. Le and his work. An interesting read.

— The first ever International Hair Restoration Conference was held in Vancouver, Canada in April 2017. During the past two months, the organizer has been releasing some interesting videos from the conference, including from the generally reclusive Dr. Kevin McElwee (Replicel) and Dr. Ray Woods (FUE hair transplant pioneer). Note that Dr. McElwee wrote most of the material on keratin.com (and he used to run the now nonexistent hair loss forums on there). Moreover, he is a co-author of an interesting new paper on hair loss titled “Experimental and early investigational drugs for androgenetic alopecia“.

— Histogen’s proprietary “multipotent cell conditioned media” will be marketed by leading global cosmetics concern Allergan via the Regenica line of product. Although not related to Histogen’s main Hair Stimulating Complex (HSC) hair loss product, it is worth noting that Allergan has several hair loss products (Bimatoprost and Setipiprant) that it is also developing. Perhaps they could purchase the rights to the HSC product in the future too?

— Very interesting study from Iran. Conclusion: “Our data showed that injection of a combination of adult human cultured dermal papilla and epithelial cells could induce hair growth in nude mice”.

— Denmark’s Harklinikken is definitely not a miracle product for hair loss treatment, but it seems like it may have some benefits per the NY Times (h/t commentator Rene). And the company has major expansion plans for the US market. Their product is derived from cow’s milk and various plants.

And now on to medical items of interest:

— US scientists make genetically modified embryo. First ever case in the US. More here.

— Breakthrough device heals organs via touch. Extremely hard to believe, but the research comes from a reputable university. The device delivers new DNA or RNA into living skin cells in order to change their function: