by LTCmdr T’Pris…
The practice of medicine is expected to change dramatically in the next thirty years because advancements in technology are proceeding at warp speed.
The foundation of self-care and health monitoring is built on the words of Hippocrates, “If we could give every individual the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health.”
This goal is getting easier due to the development of wearable wireless technology, including apps on cellphones and fitness tracking gadgets. By mid-century use of these devices will become the norm as the internet will be near-universal.
AI assisted medicine will require health authorities and practitioners to use advanced analytics and machine learning to monitor medical data – AI analysis will allow problems and diagnosis to be made with more speed and proficiency.
While we may be well on our way of eliminating many fatal and degenerative diseases by 2050 other illnesses will rise. As great as the advances in medicine and drug delivery will be to extend life expectancies, environmental problems will lead to greater health risks and threats.
It is estimated that between now and 2050 one of the largest threats facing the world is the way that climate change will affect social and environmental health statuses. Things such as air quality, drinking water, food security and shelter will be affected by global warming, floods, extremes in weather and drought. The increase in global warming will bring an increased risk of warm weather diseases to regions of the world that have never had them.
AI’s could be responsible for analyzing health data to track pandemics and the spread of diseases world wide. This capacity to trace disease vectors and forecast mutations will be more crucial as the possibility of increased spread of deadly viruses intensifies. AI’s are already being used by drug companies in producing new drugs and vaccines thus cutting down the cost-intensive and time-consuming process of drug and vaccine creation.
Advancements in health monitoring have made a quantum leap forward now that electronics or ‘internals’ can be inserted into our bodies. More widely available commercially, they can include ‘flexible electronic patches’ which are implanted right onto muscles and organs to track heart rates, liver functions, kidney functions, digestion, respiration, and brain activity for any aberrant activity. These internals could also be programmed to inject medications for diabetics and neurological disorders.
Another form of ‘internal’ is the nanomachine, small robots that are only a few microns in diameter or ~4×10-5 inches (1×10-6 meters). Nanomachines have many different forms such as nanosensors, nanoparticles and nanorobots.
The nanosensor have tiny radio/microwave emitters and/or spectrometers. They can be taken internally and will be able to track a patient’s blood or soft tissue for diseases, imbalances, or cancer.
It is believed that the use of nanoparticles will become the prevailing method in which medicine will be delivered in the future. One such application is nanoparticles made from bee venom, used to treat and kill cancer and HIV cells, while leaving other healthy tissue alone.
Nanorobots could be created to enter the bloodstream to eradicate plaque and blockages from veins and arteries, eliminating the need for invasive surgeries, and preventing heart attacks and strokes.
Advances in robotics and bionics have already made incredible strides as robotic exoskeletons help people who are seriously injured or have partial paralysis. Ocular implants for those who have lost their sight, artificial cochlear implants and bones of the ear for those who have lost their hearing, optogenetic stimulators to stimulate muscles and treat soft tissue damage to reduce years of surgeries, physiotherapy and use of medications.
Developments in bionics include artificial organs and replacement limbs. In fact, prosthetics are so advanced today that they use electrodes to connect the patient’s nerve channels for the user to send signals from the brain to the affected limb.
Then there is DNA research. It is expected that scientists will soon be able to ‘drag and drop’ genes to eliminate genetic diseases. The growth in genomic editing began in 2012 with Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier. They published research showing that the Cas9 protein (CRISPR-associated protein 9) could be altered using RNA to remove or add sequences in the very structure of the DNA molecule. This technology could be used to restore vision and hearing as well as to cure Alzeimer’s, Parkinson’s, paralysis, and other cognitive or degenerative diseases.
Stem cell therapy is already in use and is expected to be more commercially available by 2050. It will offer affordable, individualized and focused treatments for curing diseases and regenerating body parts or organs and restoring physical abilities.
Using 3D printers, today scientists can ‘bioprint’ stem cells to create biological parts to replace things like skin, bones, and organs. It may be possible in future to walk into a doctors office, provide a DNA sample, and have the physician culture stem cells based on your genome. These could then be used to replace whatever body part, tissue or organ was failing.
Given all that man has done to himself in regards to causing climate change and impacting his own health due to urban living, it is amazing to think of all the medical technology that is now or will shortly be available in the future to treat diseases, aging and accidents. The medical advancements are mind boggling. It seemed so futuristic when we saw such advancements on sci-fi shows such as Star Trek but we have advanced enough now that what was fiction is becoming reality. It will be fascinating to watch these innovations become more mainstream, and see the benefits that people will attain from them.