RIKEN, Regenerative Medicine

RIKEN Fundraising for Regenerative Medicine

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RIKEN is a Japanese government funded research institute, with one of their many areas of focus being hair loss cure research. They get very little in the way of public donations. This should change in FY 2021 due to their widely publicized request (which I discuss in the second half of this post).

RIKEN Updates

Update: October 12, 2021

Two interesting new developments this week in relation to RIKEN and hair made me update this post.

  • First, they published some interesting new findings in relation to untangling the process of hair follicle development. Their scientists created a dynamic four-dimensional atlas that explains the origins and development of adult hair follicle stem cells. They call this a telescopic model and it analyzes the cellular dynamics and gene expression changes involved in hair follicle development. The actual study was published in “Nature” in June 2021 and is titled: “Tracing the origin of hair follicle stem cells.” Per lead researchers Hironobu Fujiwara and Ritsuko Morita:

“The findings could help drug developers to design new therapeutics to combat baldness and other types of hair loss.”

  • Of more interest to this blog’s readers, a new lengthy summary of RIKEN and Dr. Takashi Tsuji’s work was just published in an online Chinese publication. There seems to be some kind of collaboration between RIKEN and ISEI Health in China’s regenerative medicine sector. Thanks to “Jan” for first posting the link. Key quotes from Dr. Tsuji below, including an implication that trials already started:

“The initial hair follicle regeneration clinical trial invested about 500 million yen. If the results are confirmed, I want to spend an additional 1 billion to 1.5 billion yen to gradually increase the number of trials.”

“Cost is about 50 million yen until the first 100 people. If it becomes 10,000, it will be reduced to 25 million yen, and after that, it will be reduced to 15 million yen. The more users there are, the more likely the cost is. reduce.”

February 11, 2021

I have never written a fundraising related post on this blog before. I have encouraged readers to donate small amounts in order to send people to major hair loss conferences twice. However, those fundraising goals amounted to just several thousand USD.

Several days ago, we learnt that Dr. Takashi Tsuji and his hair loss cure project was still progressing. Although he split from commercial partner Organ Technologies in 2020, his RIKEN (Rikagaku Kenkyūjo) team’s research continues to thrive. Next stop is clinical hair regeneration.

RIKEN Fundraising

However, the hair loss and teeth regeneration work from RIKEN now needs private funding.

“The team is seeking 500 million yen ($4.8 million) in donations from companies and individuals. The money will be used not only for clinical testing on the safety of the hair transplant technology, but also for other trials, such as regenerating teeth.”

  • In FY 2018, RIKEN received only 37 donations for a total of approximately 8 million yen. Equivalent to $76,000 at current exchange rates.
  • In FY 2019, RIKEN received 380 donations for a total of 25 million yen. Equivalent to just $240,000 at current exchange rates.

I wrote to the RIKEN team and suggested their using GoFundMe or contacting Allergan for investment. The latter has invested in 5 hair loss companies in recent years. In 2019, Allergan gave $25 million to Exicure, along with potential milestone payments of $265 million. RIKEN only 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:

Update: I have asked them to add a Paypal option. Hope they do so, as I prefer that option over paying by credit card. Someone on Twitter has also asked them to be more transparent by posting total funds raised to date information.

I later also asked RIKEN about approaching locally based Aderans. Their response was as follows:

“Aderans is a partner of hair diagnostic project but not hair follicle regeneration. I would like to meet a new partner of the hair regeneration for clinical application in human.”

Caveat

If you do donate to this cause, please note that the chances of any particular hair loss cure coming to realization are always abysmal. We have been disappointed over and over again for decades. I also doubt that private donations will get them more than $1 million, although I hope I am wrong.

I would suggest that the only reason to donate would be to support the overall goals of RIKEN when it comes to regenerative medicine. The implications of this work go across all of human biology. Not just hair and teeth.

Japan’s declining and aging population means that the country leads the world in anti-aging research. So these funds could indirectly benefit all of humanity. Clinical trials in Japan also proceed faster than anywhere else in the developed world. Especially when it comes to autologous regenerative medicine.

Of related interest, 10 of the 50 oldest living people in the world as of today are Japanese. That list is based on proven birth records. At the same time, Japan’s population has declined for 9 straight years, and a likely 10 straight years when new data is released.

RIKEN Tweets
RIKEN Tweets from February 11, 2021. Their hair multiplication works in human cells too.
Foxc1, Hair Follicle Stem Cells, Nfatc1, Rui Yi

Escaping Hair Follicle Stem Cells

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Dr. Rui Yi and his team from Northwestern University’s YiLab just published a groundbreaking new paper explaining the reason for aging related hair loss. The current findings were shown in various mammals.

Escaped hair stem cells.
Escaped stem cells in aging hair follicles. Source: Nature Aging (2021). Zhang, C., Wang, D., Wang, J. et al.

The Great Stem Cell Escape

The findings in this paper suggest that hair loss is not caused by stem cell death, depletion and exhaustion as has long been postulated. Rather, the stem cells escape from the structures that house them (i.e., the hair follicle bulge). The New York Times has an in-depth summary of these very interesting findings. Also see another take from Futurism.

In order to flee, the cells change their shapes from round to amoeba-like structures. Then they squeeze out of tiny holes in the follicle. Finally, they recover their normal shapes and dart away!

Of note, the researchers (led by Dr. Yi and his PhD student Chi Zhang) discovered two genes (Foxc1 and Nfatc1) that were less active in older aging hair follicle cells. The role of these two genes is to to “imprison” stem cells in the bulge. Note that Foxc1 stands for Forkhead Box C1. Nfatc1 stands for Nuclear Factor of Activated T Cells 1.

This study found a “hitherto unknown activity” of epithelial cells escaping from their niche during the aging process. This escape subsequently leads to stem cell degradation.

“If I did not see it for myself I would not have believed it. It’s almost crazy in my mind.” — Dr. Yi.

Foxc1 and Hair Loss

Note that I have covered Foxc1 in two past posts. The first (“COL17A1 damage and hair turning into skin“) covered a 2016 study whose co-author was also Dr. Rui Yi. Key quote:

“In self-renewing stem cells (SCs), Foxc1 activates Nfatc1 and bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling.”

The second post covered a 2016 article from Dr. Elaine Fuchs. In it, she found that Foxc1 plays a critical role in hair follicle and hair color (melanocyte cell) stem cell regenerative capabilities.

Stem cells residing in hair follicles are held in an inactive state for long periods of time. The new findings showed that these quiescent periods are essential for maintaining the stem cells’ rejuvenating potential.

On a somewhat related note, Dr. Yi and his team also published a new paper in September 2021 in relation to miRNA and hair loss. I have added it in that related post.