stem cell hair

hello. i'm hair specialist dr. jeff donovanfrom toronto and i'm speaking to you today from thebeautiful city of prague in the czech republic where i've had the opportunity to attend thetwenty-first annual meeting of the eadv... and this afternoon i attended a unique meeting of hair specialists 7 hair specialists from around the worldshared some very unique findings today and two dermatologist in particularshared some new research findings which

could open the doors for new treatments in thefuture for patients with hair loss. dr hoffman from germany actually opened the sessionand presented some data which really could be a new treatment in the future. dr hoffman is the chief medical officerfor a company known as replicel life sciences. now, this is the biotech company

and it's looking at whether cell-basedtreatments - hair cloning you've heard a lot about hair cloning whether this could present new treatment for patients who have androgenetic alopecia. many patients with androgenetic alopecia areusing minoxidill some men are using finasteride. this works in some patients but not inall. now what dr hoffman's group is looking atis whether hair cloning can actually provide an option for these patients.

and, he presented some data on a technique whereby here is taken from the back ofthe scalp and cells called dermal cup cells areisolated and expanded in a laboratory over two or three months into millionsof cells and then these are injected back into the scalp. does this help at all? well, the first part of dr hoffman's study was to show that in fact this is safe. this is called a phase i/iia clinicaltrial and what dr hoffman showed today is that it is safe - very few patients have anyside effects with this treatment. now this is a small study - nineteenpatients. it didn't grow a lot of hair.

grew a bit of hair --- and dr hoffman's group is now expanding this into 108 patientsbills into hunter nate patients to see if it in fact can work. i think thisis a unique treatment and may offer some hope to patients with hair loss thatdon't respond to minoxidil or don't grow hair with drugs like finasteride. and i'll look forward to dr hoffmans' second part of the studies. i want to tell you about another studywhich actually could provide new options for patients with hair loss. it's a drug called stemoxydine. now stemoxydine is patented by thecompany l'oreal.

it's been known for many years if you keep sells an environment that islow in oxygen _ we call a hypoxic environment if you keep cells in a hypoxic environment - some cells die but some cells livein some cells die but some cells live and in fact hair follicle stem cells - certain types - actually awaken and thrive. and this l oreal drug called stemoxydine actually tricks hair follicles into thinking that it's iiving in a hypoxic environment.

dr reygagne from france todayshowed some interesting data whereby a topical solution that you rub on your scalp - a five percent solution - can actually improve hair density a bit. now it didn't improve hair density alot - butit did improve it a bit - and the loreal drug company is lookingat whether stemoxydine can be combined with the current treatments that are used inthe clinic and that we all know about for hair loss. togive us more options for hairloss. so you may be hearing

more about stemoxydine down the road fromthe l'oreal drug company. well that's it for now. i'm saying goodbyefrom the beautiful city of prague and i look forward to speaking to you again soon.