Five Medical Breakthroughs that Could Change the World - Introduction

Each day I spend a little time reading about the latest news in medicine and health. So I felt compelled to make a list of five medical breakthroughs that I believe not only are going to happen in the near future, but would also have the largest impact on humanity.  Instead of writing one really long post I have decided to reveal the list below (for those you like spoilers or don’t like reading much at all).  I will give a brief overview of each and then in the next five weeks I will address each one of these in a more in depth post with links so you can scour the internet yourself.  So I present my “Five Medical Breakthroughs that Could Change the World!”

5) Artificial Organs and Blood without Rejection – The first artificial organs were invented back roughly in 1885, so this is not a new concept.  However, every organ transplant (artificial or not) is essentially rejected by the host because of immunology issues.  The newest trick would be to make new organs and blood using the patient’s own cells thus eliminating the rejection and donor aspects of medical transplants.  We already have some of this technology with synthetic blood and spray on skin on the horizon. (Warning this involves stem cell research so be prepared.)

4) Systematic Streamlining of Medical Information – More of a political viewpoint, I have heard and read about this concept many times but it never seems to get enough steam to become a reality.  However, with the growing number of drug interactions and how small the world is becoming between travel and technology, this database may become a necessity.  I’ll look at both the pros and cons, but this will inevitably always become more of a political debate than a medical one.

Our understanding of genetics
grows every day!

3) Personalized Medicine (Genetics) – Using our DNA to find a predisposition to a disease is nothing new but using your DNA to actually make a drug that caters to your needs is a very real possibility.  A very expensive but real possibility.  Imagine being sick, going into the doctor to give a blood sample and walking out of the doctor’s office a few hours later with a drug that only works for your genetic make-up.  Awesome right?

2) Cure for Cancer – I have a caveat for this one.  Cancer inherently cannot be “cured” because of the nature of how cancer works.  That doesn’t mean that our treatments aren’t getting close to essentially curing many types of cancer.  I promise I will explain, if you’re patient.

The most detailed model of the HIV model to date.

1) HIV Cure – The Holy Grail of 21^st century medicine is hiding somewhere right around the corner.  And what’s even more promising is that the research into an HIV cure seems to be leading us to a cure for almost all viral infections such as the common cold (quick example).  Yes, developing both a vaccine and a treatment for HIV is becoming more and more possible and hopefully scholars in the future will write textbooks about the great HIV outbreak much like the Black Plague; meaning it is over!

There you have it.  I will giving a more in depth look at each of these with the possibility for a few bonus breakthroughs along the way.  

Update - NASA's New Life?!

This evening I took a break from wrapping Christmas Presents and learning 2D NMR theory to just check the basic Yahoo news.  And to my surprise, NASA's new life form which I previously wrote about is in the news again.  This time, scientists are finding major holes into their research findings.  A really good, scientific review of the paper published by NASA researchers was posted on a blog by Dr. Rosemary J. Redfield.  It is an excellent analysis of NASA's work and it claims that NASA was sloppy.  There are many outlined flaws (such as execution of assays, to the starving of the organisms from phosphorous but leaving traces of phosphate salt within the experiment).

The most interesting comment by Dr. Redfield was, "If this data was presented by a PhD student at their committee meeting, I'd send them back to the bench to do more cleanup and controls."  To say this about our most famous research and scientific organization in the country and probably the world, is shocking but true.  I have asked for advice from professors and graduate students alike, and they all have one thing to say in common..."Make sure your controls are sound!"  I am a little disappointed that NASA's astrobiologists failed at such a simple research philosophy.

Check out the NASA report here.

E. Coli - Friend or Foe?

As a kid and teenager, it was drilled into our minds that E. coli was bad.  It infects food and makes people sick and thus should be deemed an enemy for all eternity.  However, if that microbiology class taught me anything it's that all things have purpose.  Now, E. coli has many good uses, the best probable being a good host for DNA vectors and genomic research.  Two recent newsworthy breakthroughs have got me intrigued about our little friends who keep the Imodium flying off the shelves at the local pharmacy. 

First off, E. coli is being used to produce medicine.  Not just any medicine but antibiotics, most specifically erythromycin A.  This antibiotic very similar to penicillin, is used in patients who usually have an allergic reaction to penicillin.  But erythromycin A has 10 chiral, stereospecific carbons which makes this molecule really, really, REALLY, difficult to make synthetically.  Researchers at Tufts University have successfully produced erythromycin A and two other variants using E. coli.  The species which produced them is naturally found in soil and if this can be utilized, it can drastically cut cost, time, and energy to make such a vital antibiotic.  (BTW, the ability to more efficiently produce medicine, physically and financially, is essentially what I will be focusing my career on...so this is kind of a big deal!)

Next and probably way more interesting to the rest of the world is the new found storage capacity of E. coli.  Yes, I'm talking about storing your computer files, like pictures, movies, and files, in bacteria.  The DNA of the bacteria can be encoded using the for DNA bases to transform anything into a base-4 code.  What's better?  The "headers" and "footers" needed to incorporate the DNA into the bacteria can also act as the coded key for the data.  Thus, without the code for the key, the data remains almost un-crackable.  Bacteria offers almost the ultimate safe as it is the most resilient "thing" on the earth.  And it can reproduce to make countless copies of the data.  But the best advantage of the data storage is the amount.   900 terabytes can be stored on 1 gram of E. coli.  For perspective, a current 1.5 terabyte external hard drive weighs 1 kilogram.  That would be the equivalent of 900,000 terabytes of information or about 180,000,000,000 songs!  DAMN!  Even Xzibit cannot fit that many songs into a car on "Pimp My Ride." 

All in all, our little enemy is actually one of our biggest allies in both medicine and technology.  Every day, thousands of researchers are pouring countless hours on time into this one species.  So next time you hear someone badmouthing E. coli, think twice before disrespecting the little guys.

Quick Random Thoughts

My mind is scattered today so I have a few short tidbits for you all today...

1) NASA found "new" life.  It is actually a really, really, REALLY big deal.  NASA announced it today at a press conference that had people buzzing about alien life.  Basically these new microbes use arsenic instead of phosphorous.  This includes their DNA and ATP (or it should now be renamed ATA I guess).  They are found in the Mono Lake, California and it is quite the discovery.  Get a quick run-down here.

2) I finalized my class schedule for next semester and I will be taking three classes along with beginning lab research.  The classes include Physical Chemistry, Particle Design and Process, and Computational Chemistry.  Currently I am taking Statistical Models, Organic Spectroscopy, and Linear Algebra/Differential Equations.  I believe whatever my research is specifically it will have a much larger emphasis on mathematical modeling of solid systems, as that is something the Taylor Lab group wants to pursue.

3) I played Wallyball last night and as I was watching some NBA highlights earlier today I wondered what it would be like if instead of professional basketball, we watched, cheered for, and celebrated Wallyball teams.  That stuff is exciting and I think people would watch it.  Kind of like Slam Ball, where the heck did that sport go?

I hope this is enough to occupy your time for at least five minutes today.  I know it did for me!