The World in 2030

The World in 2030 305
that stimulates follicle generating genes in skin cells
under wound conditions. They hope this discovery
may one day lead to treatments for baldness and abnormal
hair growth.
Dr. George Cotsarelis and colleagues from the Department
of Dermatology, Kligman Laboratories,
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, in
Philadelphia, US, found that when skin is wounded,
the cells of the epidermis take on the properties of
stem cells and generate new hair follicles that are capable
of growing new shafts of hair.
So far the results have only been achieved in mice,
but the hope is the same is true of human skin. 531
But it won’t only be treatments for troubling but minor
conditions that will be available in 2030. By that point
medicine will be able to offer patients specific ‘enhancements’
to their physiology. At this point it is important to put the
notion of ‘human enhancement’ into social context. In his
2006 paper ‘Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics,
Regulatory Challenges,’ Dr. Nick Bostrom provides some
perspective:
Most efforts to enhance cognition are of a rather
mundane nature, and some have been practiced for
thousands of years. The prime example is education
and training, where the goal is often not only
to impart specific skills or information, but also to
improve general mental faculties such as concentration,
memory, and critical thinking. Other forms of