Hair loss news first:
— In Aclaris Therapeutics’ latest webcast presentation from today (given at the Leerink Partners 6th Annual Global Healthcare Conference), the company’s CEO further elaborated on why they are so optimistic about “highly selective covalently bound JAK 3 inhibitors” helping patients with male pattern hair loss. More importantly, the CEO emphasized treating female hair loss and how that is even more distressing than male hair loss. You can listen to the whole presentation after registration, and also see the 42 slides in there. Main sections are a little after 16:30 minutes into the presentation and later on around 21:30 into the presentation. For once, someone asked a specific question about covalently bound JAK 3 inhibitors and male pattern hair loss. The most interesting quotes from the CEO:
“Most importantly, androgenic alopecia. Even though that’s traditionally not thought of as an inflammatory process, what they were able to find is that the JAK inhibitors were targeting the stem cell compartment in the hair follicle bulge and actually prolonging and inducing anagen”.
“Being covalently bound…its got a much better shot of not being as promiscous as the other JAK inhibitors“.
— Renowned Singapore based venture capitalist Finian Tan is a major investor in Samumed. I did not realize that he made the decision to invest in the company so suddenly. In his own words: “Only twice in my life I have bet so big on day one”. Poker champion, Samumed CEO Dr. Osman Kibar clearly has some hypnotic powers at his disposal.
— More developments in finding the genes behind baldness. On this blog I have covered several other recent such developments, including this interesting one from last year.
— On Hairsite, there is a great question and answer session with Dr. Paul Kemp of HairClone. Dr. Kemp also did the same on here a few months ago.
— After Hairsite’s revamp of its forum into a mobile friendly one late last year, the Hair Transplant Network is planning to do the same to its interesting forum.
— Several times during the past year, I have posted news about various doctors offering an adipose (fat) cell plus PRP combo treatment for hair loss. It seems like this treatment was part of a US based clinical trial, but I never did too much research into it. A new article on this pointed me towards the main page for the actual website of the trials. They call it STRAAND , which stands for “Stromal Tissue Cell-enriched treatment of Androgenic Alopecia via Novel Deployment”. So far, six doctors are participating. However, unlike in other trials, it seems like patients are responsible for their own expenses.
— Replicel CEO Lee Buckler writes his first article for the Huffington Post: “Will 2017 be the year of Cell Therapies?“.
And now on to medical items of interest:
— US patent office hands win in CRISPR battle to Broad Institute.
— Human gene editing receives US science panels support. If you have trouble accessing the site, another take here. One day later, a warning from ethicists.
— DARPA: We are on the cusp of merging human and machine.
— From the respected “The Economist” magazine: “Printed human body parts could soon be available for transplant“.
— The long quest to create artificial blood may soon be over.
— Trump vows to ease rules and regulations for drug makers.
— The tiny robots revolutionizing eye surgery.
— Computer lets fully paralyzed patients speak for the first time.
— A lengthy article on Dr. Anthony Atala, with many photos
— First human-pig chimeras created.
— New study that provides further evidence of caloric restriction and longevity.
