Midkine

[waynakyo]

Don't get too excited, it seems there is an australian biotech claiming that midkine (a patented protein ) can help with hair loss... It is just a patent and i am nit sure whether there is any science... From a quick read it seems related to the fgf5 but i am busy, some people can read more about it...

http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.a...an-patent-for-midkine-hair-growth--60018.html

 

[benjt]

Interesting. At least during natural hair cycling, FGF-5 has been proposed to induce catagen with some real-world support for this assumption [1]. The original study [2] for this patent, however, only found that people with abnormally long hair (megatrichology) through FGF-5 mutation cease to have this condition when FGF-5 is fixed. In their case, too long hair was probably caused through a much extended anagen phase. In the case of Androgenetic Alopecia, we suffer from very short anagen and too long catagen.

Question is: Does FGF-5 only regulate the temporal length of catagen directly, or is it a "side" effect of FGF-5 actually modulating DP/DSC cell apoptosis? If it's the former, it is of no use of us. In the latter case, however, it would be a viable approach.


[1] "An Investigation of Apoptosis in Androgenetic Alopecia", Michael B. Morgan and Paul Rose, Annals of Clinical & Laboratory Science, vol. 33, no. 1, 2003, http://www.annclinlabsci.org/content/33/1/107.full.pdf
[2] "FGF5 is a crucial regulator of hair length in humans", Higgins et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24989505