Leucine-Rich Repeat, Southern Illinois University

LGR Gene Family and Hair Follicle Growth

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Leucine-Rich Repeat-Containing G-Protein Coupled Receptor (LGR)

Last year, someone sent me an interesting link to a study on LGR6 expressing epithelial stem cells (LGR6+ ESC) and their potential to regenerate human skin as well as hair in wounded skin. LGR6 stands for “leucine-rich repeat-containing G-protein coupled receptor 6”, which is a protein that is encoded by the LGR6 gene in humans.

It turns out that one of the main authors of the above paper, Dr. Michael Neumeister, is also the chief of microsurgery and research at the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIUSOM). When I went to SIU’s plastic surgery website’s research section, I was surprised to see that they were undertaking significant research on hair regeneration. You can click on the “current research projects” and “recent publications” tabs to read more on their hair related work.

One surprising thing is that under “current research projects”, they mention LGR5 rather than LGR6 as in the earlier mentioned study:

2. Human Hair Regeneration: A Cure for Male Pattern Baldness

Goal: To produce de novo human hair follicles from LGR5 stem cells for a potential long term treatment for male pattern baldness.

Besides LGR5 and LGR6, it seems like LGR4 is also involved in hair follicle growth. LGR 4/5/6 are classified as a gene family. The differing actions of LRG5 and LRG6 on hair follicles are outlined in this article.

Going back to the original study I mentioned at the top of this post, it is interesting to note that they also mention the positive effect of adding ADSC (adipose-derived stem cells) containing SVF (stromal vascular fraction) to the LGR6 seeded scaffolding. I have covered SVF and adipose cells for hair growth a number of times on this blog. Moreover, ADSCs have been a hot topic on all hair loss forums for the past two years.

The article also mentions upregulation of WNT signaling and of epidermal growth factor (EGF) after the transplantation of a “LGR6+ epithelial stem cell-enriched scaffold.” For the scientists and experts among this blogs commentators, all of this might of significant interest for discussion.

Note: I have now added SIU to my list of the most important hair loss research centers around the world.

BioViva, Liz Parrish

Fiji and Russia Take Interest in Liz Parrish and BioViva

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I discussed Liz Parrish and BioViva in October of last year. While there has since been a great deal of skepticism surrounding Ms. Parrish’s self-experimentation as well as scientific credentials, I am still very interested in her approach (in particular, getting treated in developing countries so as to escape US regulations). She could really help speed up scientific progress. Moreover, anti-aging work (especially in regards to telomerase) has the potential to help hair loss sufferers too.

BioViva and Sierra Sciences

After some significant negative publicity earlier this year, Liz has received some positive feedback recently and she has visited a number of countries.

  • First, she filed an important patent in April of this year.
  • Shortly thereafter in May, the relatively well respected Dr. Bill Andrews (who I have covered on this blog before) of Sierra Sciences announced that his company would partner with Liz’s company BioViva and open an anti-aging clinic in Fiji:
  • Also in May, Bill and Liz co-presented at this year’s 10x Medical Device Conference.

Liz Parrish Visits Russia

  • Most surprising of all, in June Liz went to Russia and received more publicity than she did in any other country this year. I like this quote from the Russian visit summary page on BioViva’s site:

For the first time in history two of the fastest growing trends – Longevity and BlockChain – are coming together.

There are quite a few videos of Liz’s numerous presentations in Russia on YouTube. Here are some highlights:

There is a chance that this company might end up being one of the craziest scams that the biotech world has ever witnessed, but it is nevertheless great to see the popularity of ant-aging treatments in Russia. The country is the only one besides the US to have its own Cryonics facility.