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Can CRISPR lead the bald to a full head of hair? A CRISPR hair loss cure would be worth billions.


I love the answer Gene Roddenberry gave regarding a bald TNG captain.

At a press conference about Star Trek: The Next Generation, a reporter asked Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry about casting Patrick Stewart, commenting that "Surely by the 24th century, they would have found a cure for male pattern baldness." Gene Roddenberry had the perfect response.

"No, by the 24th century, no one will care."


I don't really understand it. Is it because they have fixed it to not become bald in the first place (so no cure needed), or is he just saying no one cares about it?


Because I guess we'll focus our futur minds on more important things than someone's baldness


Maybe by the 24th century being bald is an affectation for style's sake, and Picard is actually like a 24th century punk.


The solution to hair loss, in the next 20-30 years, will be cloning and implantation. Right now they do that from the parts of your head that are resistant to hair loss, using eg the FUE (Follicular Unit Extraction) approach. The obvious step from here is to clone your resistant hair follicle/s, then implant. If we can use a bioreactor to grow various organs on scaffolds now, we're going to be able to clone follicles sooner than later. I'd be surprised if some labs aren't already on this. At scale this will also be a cost-effective approach and extremely safe, it'll make gene editing as a means to combat hair loss pointless for a very, very long time.




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