Last week, Alopecia UK's CEO Sue Schilling and Research & Liaison Manager Julie Clayton attended the First Barcelona Hair Meeting

The two day conference included 60 speakers and nearly 500 professionals from 51 countries, presenting information on research and treatments against alopecia areata, androgenetic alopecia and scarring alopecias. 

For Sue and Julie, it was an opportunity to meet some alopecia researchers for the first time as well as catching up with familiar faces from Alopecia UK's Research Committee including Professor Des Tobin, Dr Matthew Harries and Professor Andrew Messenger. 

The event was a the first Barcelona Hair Meeting, following the successful hosting of the World Congress for Hair Research in the same venue in 2019. Sue and Julie were able to talk to scientists, dermatologists, trichologists, immunologists and hair restoration surgeons, raising awareness of the work Alopecia UK does including the funding opportunities offered by the charity to those looking into the causes and treatments of hair loss conditions. 

Sue and Julie both got a huge amount from attending the event and, as the only patient organisation in attendance, hosted a popular stand for attendees to visit. 

The buzz at this event was around updates on the use of Janus Kinase inhibitor drugs (JAK inhibitors) for treating alopecia areata (AA). There was so much discussed around this, including a full symposium on the subject sponsored by pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, that Julie has written up her own blog about the conversations that were held at the conference around JAK inhibitors. You can read that here.

In addition, Sue has also written her own short blog post explaining what it was like to attend her first hair research conference and what her goals for attending were. You can read that here. 

Both blogs are interesting and certainly worth grabbing a cuppa and having a read of if you are interested in our Research aim. 

Thank you to the event organisers for allowing us to attend and all the speakers, sponsors and attendees for creating such a great meeting.