Novel Innovations Driving the Future of Medicine
Amirali Banani
December 12, 2023
Medicine is one of the most rapidly evolving fields in science, with large research budgets and hugely important outcomes. If you are considering pursuing a career in medicine or related research careers, this article covers some of the latest medical innovations you could end up being involved in.
Robots in Medicine
This may sound like something out of science fiction, but the use of robotics and artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly common and important in the medical field. From robots that can perform complex surgical operations with more precision and steadiness than an experienced surgeon, to prosthetic limbs that can be controlled literally by their wearers’ thoughts, the possibilities are endless.
There’s also the possibility of micro- and nano-robots that could work in conjunction to cure diseases and other deformities inside the body, as well as aid in drug delivery. Although here it sounds like there is less work to do for humans, these computer programs and robots all have to be designed and (mostly) controlled/operated by humans. There is also so much more to be understood about the mechanical components/functions of robots and the anatomy/physiology of the human body before such devices can become truly mainstream, so it may take at least a century or more by the time we have tiny functional robots roaming our bodies and repairing deformities here and there.
Stem Cell Therapy
One of medicine’s hottest topics and most promising frontiers, stem cell therapy seems to have been constantly appearing in the news and millions of medical journals over the last couple of years. But to what extent are we able to use them in medicine, and where are they heading in the future?
Essentially, stem cells are cells that haven’t yet differentiated into a specific type of cell (such as a neuron or erythrocyte) and so they can become various types of cells. This is exciting for medicine, because if we can control what type of cell stem cells differentiate into, then we could use them to replace or renew damaged cells, tissue, or organs. Say, you have a patient who has Alzheimer’s, a neurogenerative disease that results in the mass death of neurons in the brain. Then, stem cells can be used to produce new neurons that can replace the dead ones in the brain and regenerate neural connections that effectively ‘revive’ the brain.
So far, there are a few stem cell therapies that seem to be effective, including treatment for blood cell diseases like sickle cell anemia and tissue grafts that can help with healing bone, skin, and eye injuries. However, the stem cell therapies that currently exist are often dubious, so there’s a long way to go both in stem cell research and in the public understanding of potential therapeutic options.
Personalized Medicine
An exciting and unique area that medicine is already beginning to move towards is the idea that we should stop treating people using a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Personalized medicine involves looking at a variety of factors unique to each person, based on their genetics, to determine exactly what treatment plan is best in each situation. More and more evidence is coming out suggesting that typical medical advice is often not ideal for all people. For example, many drugs work differently between men and women, even down to what time of day the medication should be taken.
Indeed, there is a particular issue around the fact that most medical trials are carried out on only one set of people, which means that researchers often miss the varying effects that medication might have on people of different sexes, ethnicities, and genetic makeup. With the advent of easier and cheaper genome sequencing, doctors could examine a patient’s genes when determining the best course of treatment for them, using a wide range of data and information. Additionally, wearable technology now means that we (and our doctors) can get an accurate idea of health information like how much exercise we should do each week to stay healthy based on parameters unique to each individual.
Restoring The Efficacy of Antibiotics
If you’ve been keeping up with health news over the last few years, you’ll have noticed increasing concerns around the availability of effective antibiotics. Over time, with repeated use of antibiotics, bacteria can evolve and adapt to be resistant or “immune” to normal antibiotics. In recent years, due to certain factors such as the overconsumption of antibiotics by patients or the overprescription of drugs by physicians, many bacteria have become increasingly resistant to the antibiotics used to get rid of them. A few years ago, the first case was reported of an individual with a bacterial infection that could not be treated even with last-resort antibiotics. Ever since an increasing number of such cases have been reported, signalling the urgency of establishing new guidelines and the importance of developing novel antibiotics and alternative treatments.
Some of the current research focuses on methods that can inhibit certain ‘defensive’ traits of bacteria by tweaking their DNA, allowing antibiotics to do their work. Other medical researchers are working on discovering antibiotics that work in unconventional ways to decrease the likelihood of bacteria becoming antibiotic-resistant. Other research is aiming to find ways to use viruses against bacteria or to trick a bacterium’s immune system into turning against itself.
Antibiotic resistance is one of the most concerning topics in healthcare right now, so it will likely continue to be one of biomedical science’s biggest focuses in the coming years. Alongside new technology, it’s also crucial that industries using antibiotics such as healthcare or agriculture become far more careful about how, and how much, they use or prescribe antibiotics when not necessary.
CRISPR Gene Editing Technology
CRISPR is short for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (obviously not the catchiest name), which are sequences of genetic code that bacteria essentially use as an ‘immune system’ to defend themselves against viruses.
They are normally used by bacteria to switch off targeted genes, but by modifying the genetic sequences, scientists can use them to activate the expression of certain genes that control a variety of traits in humans. By doing so, medical researchers can target specific areas of a genome for editing, with the potential for huge advances in treating genetic diseases.
A better understanding of CRISPR can also help with diagnosing diseases in patients. Not only can CRISPR be used to correct genetic errors, but it can also be used to actively fight against disease-causing microbes, as mentioned above in antibiotic alternatives.
Interestingly, CRISPR can also have a lot of useful applications in agriculture, producing foods that can make us healthier. Scientists have even been looking at ways to use CRISPR to edit the genes of mosquitos to reduce the spread of some tropical diseases, although serious care must be taken when it comes to dealing with genetics like this to avoid harming delicate ecosystems.
Conclusion
These are just a few of the ways we may see medicine change dramatically in the near future, and there are plenty of other areas that researchers are looking into improving. With technology, social media, and large amounts of data, the way doctors communicate with, diagnose, and treat us might look completely different in the coming years, so there are inevitable concerns about data usage and a loss of face-to-face medical care. Meanwhile, the availability of genetic testing kits might mean we take more ownership of our own genes and healthcare, but there are already cases of people being led astray by complicated results they aren’t qualified to understand.
Nevertheless, whatever the future of medicine holds, there’s certainly going to be a huge amount and variety of work that will need to be carried out from biomedical research to data processing and healthcare to science policy all to solve pressing health issues.
Perhaps you who are reading this article might find yourself getting involved with the next big frontiers in medicine.
