Questions to ask on hair conference 2014

[Python]

So the protocol will be pretty simple. We will divide the questions into groups which will be representing the particular teams, i.e Follica, Lauster.

Members can post questions they want to see asked and if you agree with a question then you can quote it, followed by a "+1". You are not alowed to vote more than once for the same question.

An example would be.

Barry Allen wants the following question asked:

"Dr. Cot, when do you feel follica will deliver a treatment to the mainstream and would it be cost accessible to the middle class?"

"Dr. Cot, when do you feel follica will deliver a treatment to the mainstream and would it be cost accessible to the middle class?"

Steve Rogers +1

I will be adding up the points as constantly as I can so we can see which questions members want answered the most.

QUESTIONS:

Beren Ataç/Dr. Gerd Lindner:

1. If the bioreactor creates exact duplicates of follicles that function as normal follicles, is it necessary to have them go through clinical trials for implanting considering hair transplants achieve this and have been approved as a method for commercial use.
2. It's my understanding that the bioreactor is intended to create follicles for studying but if the bioreactor can make follicles why not just use the bioreactor to create new follicles and then implant those follicles into balding person's scalps?
3. How does the bioreactor work?
4. Has there been any success with the newly created follicles growing on human scalp creating thick terminal hair?
5. Are there plans to have these bioreactors available to doctors, ie; hair transplant doctors, to use and create new follicles?
6. What would the costs be for doctors to have such a bioreactor in clinics?
7. Have there been any trials done already? If so, how far have you come along? If not, when will they start?
8. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?
9. Does new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached to it?


Dr. Cotsarelis/Follica:

1. Does the wounding method damage the scalp and dermis to the point of jeopardizing existing follicles that produce terminal hairs?
2. How far along is your wounding based therapy to treat hair loss?
3. In which Phase trial is Follica currently in?
4. When can we expect Phase III clinical trials to start for Follica?
5. How long is the wait period for the FDA to allow Follica to go commercial once the trials are finished?
6. Has the use of FGF-9 been used in the clinical trials with Follica?
7. Can the trials for Follica be fast tracked with the use of approved substances? If so, when could we see the treatment see a commercial release for the public to overcome baldness?
8. Can Follica's wounding method be repeated for increased density?
9. Does Follica's method of wounding jeopardize existing follicles?
10. Are the the current results cosmetically significant and consistent enough to represent a complete cure?
11. What is the state of PGD2 findings and a treatment for it in the interim until Follica's method is released?


ARP Sari:

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?


Aaron Gardner:

1. Do you have any ideas how to further increase hair inductivity despite numerous culture passes?


Dr. Angela Christiano:

1. Have there been any attempts to collaborate with the team of researchers in China that have been able to reproduce DP cells while retaining their properties along with the work of Dr. Colin Jahoda's method of reproducing Epithelial cells?
2. Would you be willing to work on a crowd funding campaign to expedite the treatment in any country possible?


General Questions For all Researchers:

1. Does this treatment help people who suffer from DUTA to restore their hair?
2. Yale scientists say that fat cells under follicles signal follicles to grow hairs. Some doctors are injecting fat cells from the stomach into the scalp to try to get those fat cells to send signals to follicles to regrow hair. But the fat cells in the stomach are not actively giving off signals to the follicles to grow long thick hairs. Wouldn't it make more sense to take plugs from the patient's hair donor region where the hair is growing strong, culture the underlying fat cells, and re-inject the cultured fat cells into balding areas of the same person's scalp along with the appropriate hair cells, after culturing them as well? It is, after all, the follicles under the scalp hairs that are giving signals to the scalp follicles to grow long thick hairs.
3. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?
4. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?
5. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid?

 

[hellouser]

"Dr. Cot, when do you feel follica will deliver a treatment to the mainstream and would it be cost accessible to the middle class?"

This is a dangerous way of asking the question.

It gives him way too much time to think about what answer he is going to give. That question, essentially the most important one of all, needs to be asked in such a manner that he doesn't put much thought and gives a straight answer. The question/answer should go something along the lines of:

Desmond: You're name is Dr. George Cotsarelis, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You work at the University of Pennsylvania, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You founded the wounded theory of creating follicles, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: When will Follica's treatment be available to the public?
Cotsarelis: *ANSWER*

You need to catch him off guard after firing off rapid questions with easy one word answers. Otherwise, you're bound to hear something like this instead:

'Follica's treatment is very close to a release, if everything goes smoothly, it's possible we'll have something in 2-5 years'

I do not want to hear another one of those answers.

 

[moskva]

Greetings. Long time lurker here. Pardon for my lame English just in case.
The current status of hair loss is pretty desperate, both in my case and in the field as a whole. Been seeing you guys talking about cross funding, interviewing the top scholars in this field, man this is extremely exciting. I'm 100% pro for the idea. We, the sufferers are finally actively claiming our demand, and hopefully we would be involved as the "boss" as we always deserved to be, in the development of the solution, and give a push to those academic people who got the knowledge to help, speed up things in our favor, in this society with careless indifferent attitude toward hair loss.

About this congress, What I'm interested most is the procedure of making new follicles (lauster, jahoda, xu, etc.), I'd like to know:
1. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?(naive question I know)
2. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?(still naive)
3. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid under certain conditions?

 

[Python]

This is a dangerous way of asking the question.

It gives him way too much time to think about what answer he is going to give. That question, essentially the most important one of all, needs to be asked in such a manner that he doesn't put much thought and gives a straight answer. The question/answer should go something along the lines of:

Desmond: You're name is Dr. George Cotsarelis, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You work at the University of Pennsylvania, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You founded the wounded theory of creating follicles, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: When will Follica's treatment be available to the public?
Cotsarelis: *ANSWER*

You need to catch him off guard after firing off rapid questions with easy one word answers. Otherwise, you're bound to hear something like this instead:

'Follica's treatment is very close to a release, if everything goes smoothly, it's possible we'll have something in 2-5 years'

I do not want to hear another one of those answers.

Yes, true, but was explaining the protocol. Your idea should be left for the last question as well because if we assume he does answer that one and we catch him off guard, he will most likely not want to answer many more questions. I know I wouldn't, seeing as it is so sneeky that he will get in trouble with the investors. You are suppose to sign non-disclosure agreements with investors, so it may end up being a disaster. Just saying, I have seen leaders in the tech field spill the beans and they are forcefully fired.

 

[hellouser]

1. To produce the follicles with desired number, size, lifespan, and the compatibility to our own scalp, what knowledge are still absent?(naive question I know)

+1

This should be directed at Dr. Lauster/Beren Atac and Dr. Jahoda/Dr. Christiano.

2. Do they know each other’s work? To what extent? Do each one of them find other's work complementary, or somewhat helpful to his own?(still naive)

+1

But this should be directed to Dr. Jahoda/Dr. Christiano. Their missing piece to the puzzle is DP cell reproduction, which the team in China has done.

3. Are they willing to team up with each other, or even going forward to develop a commercial product (which would basically be a cure for hair loss), if we like them to, and may give them considerable financial aid under certain conditions?

-1

I'd ask how committed they would be to a joint effort via crowdfunding once a WORKING solution is shown to push through trials and into commercialization.

 

[I.D WALKER]

If you want to squeeze the wiggle room life out of him/them then don't give the slippery Doctor Cots an opportunity. In a very short time he'll have to be impressed that you have already anticipated his unseemly evasive old self, but you have to do this tactfully because as a general rule that's been long time established physicians are egotistical, borderline narcissists, and are easily offended. Counter his answer, that is assuming he cooperates, and shake him gently and without pause. Here might be an example that relates to naturally our favorite question ; Sir I am in communication with one thousand plus hair loss sufferers and investors/ clients who are earnestly banking on the prospect that your tireless research is coming to a head and with that a new and viable treatment/cure will be available soon. In your present opinion, is your current projection of so and so many years still status quo and if not do you have a timeline yet in mind and would you be so gracious as to expound on what is it about this new and exciting revised projection date that will prevent this from going full circle once more? It's a bit verbose but it may be enough to hold his interests and possibly pin a more precise release date. It's tricky and this pseudo scenario may not be realistic. The man may be obstinate or he may not have a working treatment/cure at all. If he could admit that he had zero progress we'ld be more apt to forgive him. Empty promises will eventually catch up with all of them.

+1

This should be directed at Dr. Lauster/Beren Atac and Dr. Jahoda/Dr. Christiano.


+1

But this should be directed to Dr. Jahoda/Dr. Christiano. Their missing piece to the puzzle is DP cell reproduction, which the team in China has done.



-1

I'd ask how committed they would be to a joint effort via crowdfunding once a WORKING solution is shown to push through trials and into commercialization.

 

[hellouser]

If you want to squeeze the wiggle room life out of him/them then don't give the slippery Doctor Cots an opportunity. In a very short time he'll have to be impressed that you have already anticipated his unseemly evasive old self, but you have to do this tactfully because as a general rule that's been long time established physicians are egotistical, borderline narcissists, and are easily offended. Counter his answer, that is assuming he cooperates, and shake him gently and without pause. Here might be an example that relates to naturally our favorite question ; Sir I am in communication with one thousand plus hair loss sufferers and investors/ clients who are earnestly banking on the prospect that your tireless research is coming to a head and with that a new and viable treatment/cure will be available soon. In your present opinion, is your current projection of so and so many years still status quo and if not do you have a timeline yet in mind and would you be so gracious as to expound on what is it about this new and exciting revised projection date that will prevent this from going full circle once more? It's a bit verbose but it may be enough to hold his interests and possibly pin a more precise release date. It's tricky and this pseudo scenario may not be realistic. The man may be obstinate or he may not have a working treatment/cure at all. If he could admit that he had zero progress we'ld be more apt to forgive him. Empty promises will eventually catch up with all of them.

Gotta agree with this too. I suppose it all comes down to psychology...

 

[I.D WALKER]

Just a rough idea. Will Desmond be leaving any contact information for the individuals he hopes to "interview"? If so maybe it would be helpful to attach a brief and concise description of our agenda protocol( so to speak) along with it. For what it's worth perhaps the beautiful audacity of our intentions, complimented by the imposing number of force supporting this mission would seriously turn some heads? Thanx again Hell and company for your generous contributions and proactivity.

 

[hellouser]

Just a rough idea. Will Desmond be leaving any contact information for the individuals he hopes to "interview"? If so maybe it would be helpful to attach a brief and concise description of our agenda protocol( so to speak) along with it. For what it's worth perhaps the beautiful audacity of our intentions, complimented by the imposing number of force supporting this mission would seriously turn some heads? Thanx again Hell and company for your generous contributions and proactivity.

I suppose he could, but an initiative like that should be a little more 'official' than just a verbal exchange of potential stuff. Something more concrete should be proposed to him though. We'd have to whip up a proposal by next week.

 

[dreamermerlin]

This is a dangerous way of asking the question.

It gives him way too much time to think about what answer he is going to give. That question, essentially the most important one of all, needs to be asked in such a manner that he doesn't put much thought and gives a straight answer. The question/answer should go something along the lines of:

Desmond: You're name is Dr. George Cotsarelis, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You work at the University of Pennsylvania, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: You founded the wounded theory of creating follicles, correct?
Cotsarelis: Yes.
Desmond: When will Follica's treatment be available to the public?
Cotsarelis: *ANSWER*

You need to catch him off guard after firing off rapid questions with easy one word answers. Otherwise, you're bound to hear something like this instead:

'Follica's treatment is very close to a release, if everything goes smoothly, it's possible we'll have something in 2-5 years'

I do not want to hear another one of those answers.

Are you sure it is the best way to ask? It looks like an interogatory at police station or at the lie detector.
"When will be the treatment release" is a wat too difficult question to be answered exatcly . The treatment maybe isn't finished yet, etc, probably even dr Cot doesn't know exactly when it will be available.
We know it's frustrating, but unfortunately this is the situation.
Better i'll ask if they have some REAL results, in tests on real people, not mice, and how big are the results obtained on the tested patients till now. This is essential, i think, because obviously we are tired with breakthrough treatments wicch turn a bald mouse into a hairy one, but when done on a man's scalp, results are non-existent or some 4-10% increase in hair count after some couple of weeks who could in fact be determined by hair growth cycles/nr of hairs in anagen at a given time.

 

[Python]

I suppose he could, but an initiative like that should be a little more 'official' than just a verbal exchange of potential stuff. Something more concrete should be proposed to him though. We'd have to whip up a proposal by next week.

It just hit me, we need to build an alliance of around 8 top members that represent the entire hair loss forum community. We can put the info there and they can contact via a website. This is also great for future projects the community wants to develop.

We can vote on names for the website or something like that.

 

[hellouser]

It just hit me, we need to build an alliance of around 8 top members that represent the entire hair loss forum community. We can put the info there and they can contact via a website. This is also great for future projects the community wants to develop.

Agreed.

We can vote on names for the website or something like that.

Can't do that. I have a list of assigned roles for such a venture and you need around 8 people at minimum to get the ball rolling, and each role is different so we need someone who is capable, competent and dedicated in that area. As for contributors/volunteers to the cause, you can NEVER have enough.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you sure it is the best way to ask? It looks like an interogatory at police station or at the lie detector.
"When will be the treatment release" is a wat too difficult question to be answered exatcly . The treatment maybe isn't finished yet, etc, probably even dr Cot doesn't know exactly when it will be available.

The treatment is going through or perhaps already has finished phase II trials. The efficacy of it is no longer up for debate after Follica stated they are capable of creating new follicles.

We know it's frustrating, but unfortunately this is the situation.

And this is where we have to be adamant about having a treatment NOW. The waiting game has gone on for long enough. If I hear another 2-5 years bull**** I'm going to vomit.

Better i'll ask if they have some REAL results, in tests on real people, not mice, and how big are the results obtained on the tested patients till now. This is essential, i think, because obviously we are tired with breakthrough treatments wicch turn a bald mouse into a hairy one, but when done on a man's scalp, results are non-existent or some 4-10% increase in hair count after some couple of weeks who could in fact be determined by hair growth cycles/nr of hairs in anagen at a given time.

I agree with this but as I mentioned, if Follica says theyre creating hairs... then I want that treatment. Enough of the waiting times, were not getting any younger and the quality of our lives are certainly not getting any better as our hair is diminishing with each passing year.

 

[thinin]

QUESTIONS:

Dr. Nigam
1.
2.

1. What goes through your head when ripping people off and lying through your teeth?

2. How can you sleep at night? You scum.

 

[hellouser]

1. What goes through your head when ripping people off and lying through your teeth?

2. How can you sleep at night? You scum.

Python, you should remove Mr. Nigam from your list. He's a fraud, the guys at Bald Truth Talk exposed him a long time ago. He's been caught photoshopping pictures showing fake results, he injected patients with animal serum, implanted follicles into patients upside down causing ingrown hairs and infections, lied about donor doubling and even has the police searching for him, article on that here: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai-cops-are-shielding-doctor-accused-of-cheating/15102051

I'm going to be reporting him to the Hair Congress. Hopefully he gets kicked out and receives no attention at all.

 

[Python]

Python, you should remove Mr. Nigam from your list. He's a fraud, the guys at Bald Truth Talk exposed him a long time ago. He's been caught photoshopping pictures showing fake results, he injected patients with animal serum, implanted follicles into patients upside down causing ingrown hairs and infections, lied about donor doubling and even has the police searching for him, article on that here: http://www.mid-day.com/articles/mumbai-cops-are-shielding-doctor-accused-of-cheating/15102051

I'm going to be reporting him to the Hair Congress. Hopefully he gets kicked out and receives no attention at all.

Wow, planting them upside down. That is both fked up and amusing at the same time.

Hey, I want to be part of the committee. I think I will set up a website on the weekend and ask some of the top members to join.
People take too long to do anything and overthink things, I just have to take innitiative since people want the work done.

 

[hellouser]

Wow, planting them upside down. That is both fked up and amusing at the same time.

Hey, I want to be part of the committee. I think I will set up a website on the weekend and ask some of the top members to join.
People take too long to do anything and overthink things, I just have to take innitiative since people want the work done.

You can setup something for the interim, but a crowdfunding campaign will be different and ironed out a number of times before it gets the green light. Theres no room for cutting corners on that front, even if people are lazy to contribute. I'm not signing up for that mostly due to the fact that we have no guarantees of any methods of lab grown follicles working on humans and growing hair. Too much of a grey area for us to use as the basis for any initiative.

 

[slam1523]

Don't know how many people have said it yet, but thanks hellouser for the effort you're putting into this!

 

[dreamermerlin]

Agreed.



Can't do that. I have a list of assigned roles for such a venture and you need around 8 people at minimum to get the ball rolling, and each role is different so we need someone who is capable, competent and dedicated in that area. As for contributors/volunteers to the cause, you can NEVER have enough.

- - - Updated - - -



The treatment is going through or perhaps already has finished phase II trials. The efficacy of it is no longer up for debate after Follica stated they are capable of creating new follicles.



And this is where we have to be adamant about having a treatment NOW. The waiting game has gone on for long enough. If I hear another 2-5 years bull**** I'm going to vomit.



I agree with this but as I mentioned, if Follica says theyre creating hairs... then I want that treatment. Enough of the waiting times, were not getting any younger and the quality of our lives are certainly not getting any better as our hair is diminishing with each passing year.

Agree. If they really created follicles in human heads, that's very good.
But hope follciles were on real people, not mice.
And we should ask him about the quantity of new follciles they could create, could that offer a decent cosmetical improvement?
Because if they create 5 hairs on a square centimeter, it's not bad but also not that great.

 

[Armando Jose]

One question, important to me, is if the new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached at it?
IMHO a hair shaft, even with dermal papilla, is only a part of the pilosebaceous unit in order to make a real healthy scalp hair.
I dont know who scientist is the best to ask this question.

 

[I.D WALKER]

Yes, Yes, and Yes. Now this dialogue is model proof of what organized and collective brainstorming storm will produce. I am confident that we can build and develop a more powerful army of members in the near future if we continue to push ahead in this creative and initiate manner. Clearly we have the numbers and will power to become a force to be reckoned with.

It just hit me, we need to build an alliance of around 8 top members that represent the entire hair loss foru m community. We can put the info there and they can contact via a website. This is also great for future projects the community wants to develop.

We can vote on names for the website or something like that.

- - - Updated - - -

Another important question. The web site devised might include these types of specific and scientific talking points. We will only be taken seriously if we display professionalism.

One question, important to me, is if the new hair created have a sebaceous gland attached at it?
IMHO a hair shaft, even with dermal papilla, is only a part of the pilosebaceous unit in order to make a real healthy scalp hair.
I dont know who scientist is the best to ask this question.