Monasterium Laboraratory has a new patent approved and updated on January 20, 2021. It pertains to a proprietary active agent that “activates, enhances, inactivates, blocks or dampens the cellular response of the taste receptor TAS2R4”. Apparently, this impacts hair growth regulation.
Update: May 2021 — Hair follicle chemosensation and TRPM5 signaling.
Ralf Paus: Founder & CEO
Dr. Ralf Paus is the founder and CEO of Monasterium Laboratory (see next section that was written in 2017). He is a prolific hair loss research scientist. In 2020 I was about to write a whole post on Dr. Paus and his team’s many recent studies and findings. I got a bit lazy, and that post might come later this year. Luckily I stumbled upon something far better today.
“Hair follicles are continuously stoned” — Dr. Ralf Paus
Please make sure to listen to this excellent Podcast from October 2020 in which Dr. Ralf Paus is interviewed by Dr. Luke Johnson (University of Utah) and Dr. Michelle Tarbox (Texas Tech University). The latter two host the Dermashpere dermatology related Podcast.
Dr. Paus makes the below quote in relation to Cyclosporine, Wnt signaling, Wnt inhibitors and the future of a hair loss cure or treatment.
“There is light at the end of the tunnel” — Dr. Ralf Paus
Listen closely around 40 mins into the Podcast:
Based on this podcast, I am really impressed with Dr. Paus and his enthusiasm for hair loss research. He is as big a hair nerd as anyone can get.
The only issue I have is that most of Monasterium Laboratory’s work seems to be in relation to finding cosmetic agents for hair growth promotion. I remain skeptical that any cosmetic product can regrow long-gone hair in fully bald scalps, but hope I am wrong.
June 28, 2017
According to Monasterium Laboratory’s news page, they moved into a brand new research facility in 2018. It is located in this modern nanobiotech research hub.
Monasterium Laboratory in Germany
Recently, I stumbled upon the website of a new company that Dr. Ralf Paus has started in Germany called Monasterium Laboratory Skin & Hair Research Solutions. Although the company started in 2015, it seems like their website only came on-stream in 2016. Update: They now have a new Youtube channel.
On the website, they have an image of the earlier mentioned study on the olfactory receptor (specifically, the OR2AT4 receptor). Apparently the company and its partner even released a product in Italy in 2017 called Bioscalin Signal Revolution and it supposedly stimulates the OR2AT4 receptor. This product targets the sandalwood scent (via the synthetic sandalwood‐like odorant sandalore), which was in the news a lot in 2018.
Bioscalin is on sale on Amazon, but is not cheap.
Another interesting study that the Monasterium team has published recently concludes that the antidepressant Fluoxetine (Prozac) promotes human hair follicle pigmentation and could prevent grey hair formation. This is interesting and surprising, because there have also been some reports that SSRIs such as Prozac can cause hair loss in some patients.
Caveat and Research Activities
During the course of my research for this post, I read this wikipedia entry on Dr. Paus’ wife (with parts of it also involving Dr. Paus). There seems to be some controversy regarding their past work.
Nevertheless, this does not seem to have prevented Monasterium Laboratory from having a pretty solid list of advisers and collaboration partners.
Among Monasterium’s clients include the below ones that I have covered a number of times on this blog.
The US, Japan and Germany seem to be leading global hair loss research. Germany has been lagging the other two of late, so I am glad about this new addition in that country.