lynes, a co-leader of the research while he was a Columbia professor (he now works for Bristol-Myers Squibb), said the team tested cream and pills on mice, and planned to test a cream on people.
So far he considered ruxolitinib “an expensive therapy that’s probably effective based on the small number of patients that we’ve treated, and it’s likely to have a reasonable safety profile. But there’s no way that I can endorse it fully unless we do larger trial.”
The team also plans to test on people another JAK inhibitor, tofacitinib, which is approved for rheumatoid arthritis and grew hair on mice. In June, Dr Brett King, a dermatologist at Yale, reported that tofacitinib caused full hair growth and no negative effects for a man with alopecia universalis, a variant involving almost total hair loss.
The idea to use JAK inhibitors grew out of a genome analysis Christiano conducted, which found that in alopecia areata, hair follicles emit a signal that draws immune cells to attack. Her team identified specific cells involved and found genetic similarities to unrelated autoimmune diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis.
Several of the 12 patients are still completing the study, taking ruxolitinib for three to six months. Christiano has not tried it because, she said, her alopecia has been dormant, although “I have an eyebrow that comes and goes.”
For Brian, five months on the drug yielded a full head of hair. For unknown reasons, the new hair is white instead of black, its original colour.
Still, “It’s a lot easier to shrug that off than to pass the silent judgment of people” who he felt were staring at his bald splotches, he said. He said side effects, including slight anemia, were minor.