A thought...

[clee984]

Hi Guys, I've had a thought, probably as dumb as, but everyone seems friendly on here, so I thought I'd toss it out there.

I read a book recently about longitude, and a thing called 'the longitude prize'. It was a pot of cash used as an incentive for anyone who solved the particular problem of determining a ship's longitude. It got me thinking; couldn't we do a similar thing with baldness? If we all put some money in, even a little, it'd quickly grow, and I'm sure there's a few rich guys out there who might anoymously donate (John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, I'm looking in your direction).

Spencer Kobren would be my pick for the person to administer it and keep it honest, and we could come up with a series of criteria that have to be met before the prize is awarded. I know there are already financial incentives for a baldness cure, but a cash prize might encourage students and scientists in need of grants to look into it, as well as major corporations. They all love a challenge.

I know that there is already a similar prize for life extension.

Also, this doesn't have anything to do with anything beyond being a good cause, if you sign up for and download world community grid, it uses your computer's idle cpu power to crunch numbers and help find treatments for cancer and aids and various other worthy things. I'm a bit of an evangelist for it. It doesn't slow your computer at all. Will it help cure baldness? Probably not. But it won't hurt either.

Anyway, just a thought. Thanks.

[mlao]

sounds like a plan

[KeepTheHair]

I hate to be the negative nancy but...


I am not a believing in incentives when it comes to creativity. I think it is bad for it. There is a video on it on youtube, a ted talks video.

Besides, I think there is a ton of incentive for it already... billions of dollars!


But this might still be a good idea though, but it is a bit complicated...

[clee984]

Besides, I think there is a ton of incentive for it already... billions of dollars!

You're absolutely right, but I agree with Spencer Kobren that baldness is a 'silent disease', and if guys like us make it known that there is real money out there for anyone who comes up with a genuine, no bullshit cure, it might bring attention to it, if nothing else.

But yeah, it was just an idea!

[Fixed by 35]

Prizes like this belong to an era when scientists were largely from wealthy backgrounds and could spend years at a time with no income. I'm not sure it would work now.

The trouble with baldness research is a chronic lack of regular funding that has seen promising companies collapse before they have completed their project.

Rather than a prize pot, what is needed is locked down investment. Essentially, this would be a fund that invests in research companies and guarantees the investment for x number of years. Investors would be locked into the fund and could only realise their investment upon the discovery of a cure.

[KeepTheHair]

I doubt histogen will run out of funding.

[Fixed by 35]

It almost did already, at the start of this year. Most of its investors pulled out because of the patent law suit against it.

It's running on skeleton staff even now. If it loses the case, that's curtains for them (and not for us, sadly!)

[[mcr]]

Anyone who discovers a cure or a very effective treatment that regrows hair would be an overnight billionaire. This is well-known; no incentive needed beyond that.

You can easily find one million men in the US alone who would pay $10,000, $20,000, $50,000 for this. That's $10B, $20B, $50B.

[mlao]

I thought Dr Gail Naughton said that they had new funding. Perhaps Spencer could clarify the issue.

[clee984]

Anyone who discovers a cure or a very effective treatment that regrows hair would be an overnight billionaire. This is well-known; no incentive needed beyond that.
.

This is true, but it still wouldn't do any harm, would it? Or would it? I don't know.

I've heard of the prize for life extension. It's obvious that anyone who achieved that overnight would be a billionaire too, and yet there it is. I'm not a particularly well informed guy, but I've still heard of it, and it's brought it to my attention.

The other thing was, there are people on here who are so unhappy it breaks your heart. Baldness hit me fairly hard (yes, I do still remember the exact date I first noticed), it would be an exaggeration to say it robbed me of my 20s, but not much of an exaggeration. Yet I consider myself lucky having read some of the stories on this forum. Then there's the bloke, Bullet-nut I think his name is (apologies if I'm wrong about that) who took donations so he could have corrective surgery for an old, bad HT, and now he's happy again. I definitely wouldn't mind chucking a few bucks in a collective pot for lads like that.

Anyway, thanks for the replies.