Jerry: and something were very excited about which is to copy or what we call autoclone plucked hairs.
Spencer: Yea explain that, you know a lot of people have been writing us about that there been some stuff circulating online about that, I know that you ve been doing hair plucking ,and know that ive read some stuff about Dr Hitzig experimenting with it as well, explain it to us what exactly is it.
Jerry: Sure the best way I can describe it is if you just look at the basic structure of the hair follicle there are two basic layers of cells around the hair shaft, the outer layer is what we call the mesenchymal layer and that s what contains the dermal papilla; that s what intercytex and Aderans are trying to isolate and culture and use for cloning applications and cell implants. The inner layer is what we call the epithelial layer and that where you have the bulge with the stem cells, the outer and inner root sheath and when you pluck a hair properly you can get this inner portion or the epithelia portion, now about ten years ago Dr. Hitzig began experimenting some of his patients who had multiple old transplants and had no donor hair to give he just got interested in the concept of plucking beard whiskers and using them as grafts and he had a pretty low rate of success, but once in a while it worked and he kept working over the years on ways to get it to work better, then a couple of years ago began using this product called acell and I had kept in touch with him over the years because I was very interested in this idea and once I heard about the acell I knew I had to get involved and the basic idea is this that when you pluck a hair its going to grow back from the site you plucked it because all of the elements inside are necessary to regenerate the hair follicle and anyone whos plucked there hairs knows it grows back, but the reason that it will grow where we planted it is that when we coat it with this acell product and then transplant it stimulates the bodies innate regenerative potential to rebuild the follicle that outer portion around the plucked graft.
Spencer: that s amazing,
Jerry: it is amazing
Spencer: that really is, I mean that s basically if this is truly consistently possible you would basically have unlimited donor
Jerry: Right, and it was just astounding and I knew a lot of people would be sceptical, and Dr. Hitzig although very excited about it you know didn t really take the time to take macro photographs or biopsies and so thats some of the thins I wanted to do to really convince the sceptics.
Spencer: sure
Jerry: and so I was using a high powered attachment to my digital camera to document the photographic evidence that these hairs would grow and then I did a series of biopsies and worked with a very prominent dermatopathologist to analyze these biopsies to say what do these things look like under the microscope. And I can show some of those images and basically they look like normal hair follicles, Im trying to be careful not to overplay it, and I don t want to overstate these results
Spencer: yea but its not like you just heard it through the grapevine, you actually were able to produce these results
Jerry: Correct
Spencer: okay
Jerry: yea, and prove for what I consider to be beyond a shadow of a doubt that this phenomenon occurs you simply cant look at these biopsy results and dispute what you see.
Spencer: Now are these plucked hairs growing into terminal hairs, full terminal hairs.
Jerry: yes, yea, indistinguishable
Spencer: wow,
Spencer: I will tell you that ive been in this industry for thirteen years and this is probably the most exciting news that ive ever heard, and im not just trying to over hype this. If this is what it is, if this is what you say it is this is monumental news.
Jerry: well I certainly think so , and I think so for two reasons, one I think the autocloning as it stands right now with the plucked grafts has clinical applications today. I mean im doing this in the clinic right now.