Luis Garza’s TLR3 Hair and Skin Regeneration Discovery

Dr. Luis Garza of Johns Hopkins University

Originally, I coupled this write-up in the previous Skin and Hair Regeneration for Transplant Donor Area post, but I decided to expand upon it and give it its own post.

The main idea of the latest research article by Luis Garza et al is a protein called toll-like recepter 3 (TLR3) was found to be a major proponent of skin and hair regeneration during wound healing. TLR3 does this by sensing and reacting to the double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) which is released by damaged skin. This quote from Dr. Garza probably says it all “Medications that turn on this protein have the powerful potential to decrease scarring as healing of wounds takes place, thereby promoting skin and hair follicle regeneration.” He also mentions that drug companies are already developing TLR3 activators for uses on the immune system and those products could be tested for hair regeneration purposes also. That would be similar to the Cotsarelis PGD2-Setipriprant deal.

Follicle Thoughts

There is obviously potential for this TLR3 technology to be used to stimulate hair growth. This could be done through the combination of wounding the scalp and activating TL3. I also believe a TLR3 activator could be added to the recipient area of a hair transplant, which is micro-wounded by the incisions made to place follicles. In any event, new research from Garza is a promising sentiment. As a rule of thumb, whenever an established researcher publishes an article like this they are already a step ahead of its development (or two). Remember that one.

Here’s a thought. Garza and Cotsarelis have done a lot of hair follicle research together in the past and I’ll bet in the back of your mind you thought “This would go really good with Follica.” I did, at least. Remember that rule of thumb? Well, Follica did revamp their website a couple months ago after having the same layout for several years. Coincidence?