About 15 years ago, I happened to meet a medial doctor and research scientist at MGH in Boston. He dedicated his whole life to finding a new effective treatment for cancer, but one day he found his compound was also effective in hair growth in alopecia (hair loss) patient in animal model. He published the outcome to a peer reviewed academic journal and CNN at that time reported the news. His phone at the office instantly after the news got fire in the ass with inquiries if they could join the clinical trial. He said not until the news, he only realized cancer is not everything that patients want.
Some say it should be Nobel Peace Award they deserve who develops an effective treatment for alopecia rather than Physiology Award, given the suffering of the patient. A recent statistic in Korea had it that the pain the alopecia patient undergoes is as much as that the cancer patient do (http://v.media.daum.net/v/20170923134942834).
In May last year, there was a paper in academic journal by scientists at university of Texas that KROX20, a transcription factor, may be directly involved in the development of hair follicle in alopecia patients (http://genesdev.cshlp.org/content/early/2017/05/02/gad.298703.117). The media covered the news big and the authors may have experienced the same as my buddy in Boston did 15 years ago.
I am working on stem cell conditioned media (a collection of trophic factors secreted by stem cell) on alopecia. Some proof of concept study on the alopecia have already been done including small scale clinical study. I was very much interested in the KROX20 paper and designed an experiment to test whether my stuff has an impact on the expression of KROX 20. What happened was "Yeah Boom!!". The treatment increased expression of krox20 gene almost by 5 folds compared with control.
I am doing a final stage of commercial development and in the meantime write a manuscript for publication. I don't want to be a science celeb, nor do my phone to get fire in the ass. But who knows when I get published?
