Please Help Us To Accelerate Hair Research

[AndiL]

Hello,

 

my name is Andreas Lutz. I am a German student and a member of the support group "Initiative for the advancement of hair gene research" (Infagen). We are a group of men and women with different forms of hairloss, that want to support and accelerate biomedical hair research. The aim of the initiative is the side-effect free cure of all sorts of hairloss and other hair problems (e.g. graying hair) and the regrowth of lost hair by biomedical drugs, hair multiplication, cell and gene therapy.

As you perhaps know gene therapy is considered the 4th medical revolution (after hygienics, operation in narcosis and antibiotics), as it will offer a cure for many currently incurable diseases. Also hairloss belongs to the diseases, that will finally be defeated by biomedical research. Already in 1995 the US biotech firm AntiCancer Inc. (http://www.anticancer.com ) showed, that harmless fat bubbles (=liposomes) allow the very specific and effective delivery of therapeutic genes to hair follicles (http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA06/bald.html ). Also several hair growth related genes have been found since 1995, e.g. the hairless-gene (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/record/23/14/13.html ) and the nude-gene (http://cumc.columbia.edu/news/journ...-1999/gene.html ), that were discovered by Dr. Angela Christiano (Columbia University/New York). Prof. Fuchs (Rockefeller University) even created completely new hair follicles in adult mice in 1998 (http://www.hhmi.org/fuchs ). So this groundbreaking biomedical research may lead to a full head of hair even for completely bald people.

But still some problems have to be solved before these and other exciting

research results will revolutionize the therapy of human hairloss. These problems could be solved in about 2-4 years. Up to now nearly all important research results have come from academic researchers at public universities and their financial resources are very limited. But modern biomedical research depends on latest equipment in order to be fast and effective. So the more money the researchers have, the sooner there will be a final cure for hairloss and baldness.

We already convinced the US millionaire Mr. Steve Kirsch, the inventor of

the internet search engine infoseek.com, to fund hairloss research. Following the advice of his medical experts he donated more than 200.000

dollars to Dr. Christiano and Dr. Colin Jahoda, two of the leading hair

researchers (http://www.kirschfoundation.org/how...r_follicle.html ). But this can only be a beginning. Much more tax deductibale (!!)

donations and/or investments are needed to guarantee fast research results. Of course every donator/investor will be able to talk personally with the researchers and visit their laboratories before making a final funding decision.

Another important aspect is this: Several research groups are looking for the genes, that cause the different forms of hairloss. To find these genes, they need blood samples of brothers and sisters, that are affected with hereditary hairloss (androgenetic alopecia) and alopecia areata (http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/dept/derm/hairloss/ ). So it is very important, that enough study participants are found soon.

Both aspects can be supported by an initiative of affected people, what should lead to a significant acceleration of the research process. This is the aim of the "Initiative for the advancement of hair gene research" (InFAGen).

You will find much additional information about the

enormous potential of biomedical hair research and the Infagen concept on our homepage http://www.infagen.de (English version).

We are still looking for people, that support us. Really everybody could help, e.g. by sending our standard contact letter to wealthy people with hair problems or by distributing flyers. A really fanstastic oppportunity would be of course radio- or TV-interviews in Italy, during which you could talk about the potential of biomedical research. This would hopefully also attract some interested donators/investors and study participants. So please contact me, if you want to help us! My e-mail-address is [email protected]

If at least some of us stop complaining and start acting, there will be a really effective therapy, hopefully even a cure, in the near future!

 

Best wishes

Andreas