After celebrating in my mind, I'd like to raise some (positive) points:
Is this the cure? Imho no, it's not. This is the fantastic repair when all else failed, and you've got too wide bald spots (and too many dead follicles).
The "cure", as
@Swoop preached many times, will be some one shot treatment (e.g. genetic fix) to be applied to young guys as soon as they start balding, or even as soon as male pattern baldness is predicted.
Still, this infinite donor thing sounds fantastic... if you're bald, you can really hope to regain without the FU limitations of a hair transplant. If you're maintaining, you know you can do it in a more relaxed way, and don't have to fight to keep each single follicle alive: one day, if density has gone, you'll be able to gain it back.
Skepticism: I understand the skepticals coming from years of disillusions, but this is different.
Afaik it's the first time something similar to cloning will be walking out of the lab. Lauster, etc. have always been solid promises, but never went out.
And this also means that the times are mature: even if this fails, it's very likely there will be other teams moving forward. Science progresses more or less like this.
hair transplant industry: no, I don't think it's the end of it. It might mean a change in business models, but still we'll need a skilled hair transplant surgeon.
Imho skills in hair transplants is 30% technical ability and 70% art. And who knows that implanting can be done robotically?
Also, who knows how natural a Riken hairline will look like?
It might be that a bald head can get a full coverage with Riken, and get a natural looking hairline from a top surgeon with a dense packing.
If you don't have enough FUs (in the range of 1500s), then they will clone, implant the cells, extract the fully grown grafts, and then rebuild the hairline.
In one-stop shop. Nice, dense, and definitive.
Let's go back to the hair party