Treatment of alopecia by micropore delivery of stem cells
View Patent ↗A method of restoring hair to skin that has suffered hair loss includes optically ablating an array of spaced-apart microchannels or voids into the skin and transplanting into the voids stem cells, a scaffold and a differentiation factor for causing the stem cells to differentiate into hair follicles.
1. An apparatus comprising:
a handpiece movable over skin, the handpiece arranged to receive an optical beam having an absorption coefficient in water of about 100 cm −1 to 12,300 cm −1 , the handpiece configured to focus the optical beam at a plurality of spaced-apart locations on the skin with a pulse energy per location of 5 mJ to 40 mJ thereby creating a plurality of voids in the skin for the deposition of a composition,
wherein the composition comprises a stem cell and a growth media, and the handpiece is configured to focus the optical beam to create voids with a depth of about 200 μm to 4 mm, with a density of 200 to 4000 voids per cm 2 per pass, at a rate of 100 per second to 5000 per second, and such that viable tissue separating adjacent voids has a width, at a narrowest point thereof, between about 50 μm and 500 μm.
2. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising an applicator arranged to deposit the composition in the voids following the formation of the voids.
3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the applicator further comprises a removable tip that attaches to the handpiece.
4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises a scaffold.
5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the scaffold is selected from the group consisting of poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA), fibronectin, collagen 1, and collagen 3.
6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the stem cell is hair follicle cell.
7. The apparatus of claim 6 , wherein the composition further comprises a melanocyte stem cell.
8. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the media comprises a proliferation-inducing growth factor.
9. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the growth factor is selected from the group consisting of epidermal growth factor (EGF), amphiregulin, acidic fibroblast growth factor (aFGF or FGF-1), basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF or FGF-2), and transforming growth factor alpha (TGFα), or combinations thereof.
10. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the composition further comprises a hair-follicle differentiation factor.
11. The apparatus of claim 10 , wherein the differentiation factor is selected from the group consisting of FGF2, FGF4, noggin, platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), and parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrp), or combinations thereof.
12. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the stem cell is a hair follicle cell.
13. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the scanner is configured to rotate.
14. The apparatus of claim 12 , wherein the scanner comprises one or more galvanometer scanners.
15. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the optical beam is emitted by a laser.
16. The apparatus of claim 15 , wherein the laser is a CO 2 laser with a wavelength of about 10.6 μm.
17. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a vacuum that removes debris that is removed from the skin during creation of the voids.
18. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a system that creates a positive pressure in a chamber containing the composition.
19. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the voids are elongated.