RIKEN Announcement: Succeeded in Developing Tech for HF Regenerative Medicine: Study to be Published Feb 10

[waynakyo]

I read their research purpose, frankly I am not sure why some people are underplaying the HF regeneration focus of RIKEN. I Think their call for donation sounds like it is most going for HF, but they dressed it up into general organ regeneration to attract more donations

ii) Project outline: - Basic research on novel technologies for organ regeneration. - Cooperation and support for the world's first human clinical study of first-generation "hair follicle organ regeneration medicine" using autologous hair stem cells. - Research and development of highly efficient next-generation "hair follicle organ regeneration technology”. - Animal safety and efficacy testing of "next generation implants" for "tooth regeneration". - Cooperation and support for the world's first human clinical study of "next generation implants".

I think they will start with HF an area they know most about, and however difficult, is easier than generating a kidney.

 

[waynakyo]

@NoMoney
It sounds like you are the HLC2020 guy. Can you convince them to open a gofund me? They will get more donations this way. It is transparent and people will be motivated when they see other donations flowing.

 

[TanDoc]

If they are actually seeking small-scale donations, they should hit up western media sources of all kinds (from Reuters/AP all the way to the New York Post/Daily Mail). And set up an English-language donation portal. They'd get (and even surpass) their $4.8 million easily.

Anyone able to speak Japanese to reach out to them? All they need is a couple of mentions on some casual news type sites, and any donation portal they set up (Gofundme, etc) will fill up fast with small time donors.

 

[pegasus2]

Ironically, I personally work on a capital markets floor that allocates billions to the public/private sectors, and what you are saying right now is total bunk lol. If I showed those tweets to the private sector teams they would have a field day at the lack of professionalism.

I am sure they would. I was thinking the same thing myself. It's their loss though. People who are more knowledgeable about biology will deal with Tsuji instead.

 

[trialAcc]

I am sure they would. I was thinking the same thing myself. It's their loss though. People who are more knowledgeable about biology will deal with Tsuji instead.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong here, I just don't understand what I am seeing.

 

[Throwaway94]

Maybe I am not too smart or familiar, but I don’t see what is the problem to get 5 bald persons, multiply their stem cells and see if this treatment works on humans? For that you don’t need 5 million dollars.

It won't all go just towards trial materials and consumables, they have a whole research centre to run with that money. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

 

[1919]

"I wrote to the RIKEN team and suggested using GoFundme or contacting Allergan for investment. The latter has invested in 4-5 hair loss companies in recent years. Allergan gave $25 million to Exicure. And potential milestone payments of $265 million. RIKEN needs $4.8 million.

Surprisingly, RIKEN replied to me right away. They were interested in my introducing them to the Allergan team, so I will need to figure that one out! More importantly, they said that they have created the below two links for those who want to donate:"

Hair Loss Cure 2020 | Hair loss blog with the latest news updates.

Stay up-to-date on the latest breakthroughs in hair growth and regeneration. Get key insights on hair loss cures at Hair Loss Cure 2020.

www.hairlosscure2020.com

lol, but allergan would be nice.

You will be a legend if allergen pulls through

 

[1919]

Pretty sure Allergen is now owned by Abbvie

Ah I have no idea whats going on but I appreciate the forum's effort to keep the boat floating.

 

[1919]

Its not him he just quated the link

Oh my bad . NoMoney is still a legend haha

 

[kiwi666]

@pegasus2 dang son, them asking for money is a far cry from they are funded by the Japanese Govt rhetoric.

Its definitely not the awesome update I was praying for but the fact they have tried it on a human is f*****g awesome.

 

[frank33]

@pegasus2 dang son, them asking for money is a far cry from they are funded by the Japanese Govt rhetoric.

Its definitely not the awesome update I was praying for but the fact they have tried it on a human is f*****g awesome.

Unfortunately i'm not conviced they did.
They say they have completed preclinical human safety studies, and, for definition, everything that is preclinical doesen't happen in humans.

 

[pegasus2]

@pegasus2 dang son, them asking for money is a far cry from they are funded by the Japanese Govt rhetoric.

Its definitely not the awesome update I was praying for but the fact they have tried it on a human is f*****g awesome.

Well, RIKEN is about 90% government funded. The pure research is done. It's disappointing they haven't been able to find anyone to help them bring it to market, but they will.

 

[jan_miezda]

The general interest in this kind of research seems limited. Even stemson only raised 7.5 million and is having perceived issues raising more. Most VC are more interested in a pharmaceutical deliverable than something like this where it will require an invasive surgery. The only patent they have is the cell processing steps and maybe that’s not alluring enough.

In Japan there is much less baldness anyways and who knows how few hair transplants happen yearly

Riken has billions of dollars. Their BDR sector is much newer and less funded but it still has lots of money. There must be a non technical reason why they didn’t give Tsujis team the money.

intercytex and Aderans quit early in their research as well.

 

[Catagen]

did you notice pewdiepie is balding. pewdiepie needs to spread awareness of this and the goal will be met in 1 hour lol

Most men are balding, however they will be considered to have full heads of hair by normies. For example most men will get some sort of hair maturation by 25. But that is not comparable to a high diffuse norwood 5 for example. All twitch streamers are bald as f*** and their 15 year old viewers are making fun of them for it but most of them will be in the same situation in 5-10 years.

 

[jan_miezda]

Most men are balding, however they will be considered to have full heads of hair by normies. For example most men will get some sort of hair maturation by 25. But that is not comparable to a high diffuse norwood 5 for example. All twitch streamers are bald as f*** and their 15 year old viewers are making fun of them for it but most of them will be in the same situation in 5-10 years.

Half of the streamers are hat slaves and hold those insecurities inside

 

[FollicleGuardian]

Donated. Encouraging everyone else to donate what they are capable of economically

 

[HairOnFire]

Not sure if this has been posted, but here is the actual published paper from Riken:

Sci Rep 2021 Feb 10;11(1):1173. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-80624-3.

Expansion and characterization of epithelial stem cells with potential for cyclical hair regeneration​

Makoto Takeo # 1, Kyosuke Asakawa # 1, Koh-Ei Toyoshima 1 2, Miho Ogawa 1 2, JingJing Tong 3, Tarou Irié 4, Masayuki Yanagisawa 5, Akio Sato 6, Takashi Tsuji 7 8 9 10 11

Abstract​

In mammals, organ induction occurs only during embryonic development except for hair follicles (HFs). However, HF-resident epithelial stem cells (HFSCs), which are responsible for repetitive HF regeneration, are not fully characterized. Here, we establish in vitro culture systems that are capable of controlling the ability of HFSCs to regenerate HFs. Based on a method that precisely controlled the number of HFs for regeneration, functional analysis revealed that CD34/CD49f/integrin β5 (Itgβ5)-triple-positive (CD34+/CD49f+/Itgβ5+) cells have multipotency and functional significance for continual hair regeneration. In native HFs, these cells reside in the uppermost area of the bulge region, which is surrounded by tenascin in mice and humans. This study unveils the subpopulation of HFSCs responsible for long-term hair cycling of HFs regenerated from bioengineered HF germ, suggesting the presence of functional heterogeneity among bulge HFSCs and the utility of our culture system to achieve HF regenerative therapy.

 

[trialAcc]

The general interest in this kind of research seems limited. Even stemson only raised 7.5 million and is having perceived issues raising more. Most VC are more interested in a pharmaceutical deliverable than something like this where it will require an invasive surgery. The only patent they have is the cell processing steps and maybe that’s not alluring enough.

In Japan there is much less baldness anyways and who knows how few hair transplants happen yearly

Riken has billions of dollars. Their BDR sector is much newer and less funded but it still has lots of money. There must be a non technical reason why they didn’t give Tsujis team the money.

Stemson raised 7.5 million as seed funding, meaning they just had an idea and 0 pre clinical data. They also are proposing a similar method with surgical implantation. There have been several other bigger name startups to get larger funding rounds with similar goals. Allergan funded 4-5 companies in the seed stage of hair research last year, and there is a crazy increase in interest in Asia for hair medicine, specifically in China and South Korea. The rate that younger Asians are losing their hair has made it relevant in their society.

I'm trying to not judge the quality of their science here because I'm not qualified to, but there is something weird going on here because they should have no problem raising 4.5 million without asking for donations on twitter.

 

[jan_miezda]

Stemson raised 7.5 million as seed funding, meaning they just had an idea and 0 pre clinical data. They also are proposing a similar method with surgical implantation. There have been several other bigger name startups to get larger funding rounds with similar goals. Allergan funded 4-5 companies in the seed stage of hair research last year, and there is a crazy increase in interest in Asia for hair medicine, specifically in China and South Korea. The rate that younger Asians are losing their hair has made it relevant in their society.

I'm trying to not judge the quality of their science here because I'm not qualified to, but there is something weird going on here because they should have no problem raising 4.5 million without asking for donations on twitter.

Yes but it doesn’t appear like Tsujis team has actually presented a start up concept like StemsonTx. Stemson has a board of directors, website, and clear path to bring their tech into clinics (they have transplant MDs in their board of directors)

To be honest, when Tsuji say clinical trials I think they don’t have any plans yet to bring this technology into clinics. They are using 4.8 million to do small scale test on humans

 

[trialAcc]

Yes but it doesn’t appear like Tsujis team has actually presented a start up concept like StemsonTx. Stemson has a board of directors, website, and clear path to bring their tech into clinics (they have transplant MDs in their board of directors)

To be honest, when Tsuji say clinical trials I think they don’t have any plans yet to bring this technology into clinics. They are using 4.8 million to do small scale test on humans

Into "clinics" does not mean actually into doctors offices, it means human trials in general. Small scale testing on humans would be phase 1 trails, the same process Stemson will go through.