Future of medicine

The therapies and diagnostics are quite good in todays but there are still many people dying. But what if cancer could not emerge any longer? This article explains the steps to the immortality.

 

Step 1 (from Today to 2030)

The scientist Michio Kaku explained some great ideas in his book "Physics of the Future“. His opinion is that the next step in the medicine is to analyse everyone’s genome. In today’s robots can analyse the genome for only 50000 dollar and it will fall down to 1000
dollar and a few years later to 100 dollar. This price would make it accessible to everyone like today a normal blood test. Then one could think about a global data bank in which everyone’s genome is stored to enable computers to categorize the codes, so other computer programs can easily sort out similar genomes for example for organ donation. Such data banks are also helpful in terms of combating cancer. I can imagine that one day there will be sensors in your bathroom they compare your genome directly with a data bank and tell you what you should do, before any cancer can emerge.

Another very current theme is the histotechnology, which is already quite advanced. Today scientist can already bread skin, blood, blood vessels, noses and heart valves out of your own cells. In a few years the first full organs will follow this list. But this system can only work effective together with a genome data bank like the one above. One day the doctor could just simply order a new organ for a patient. 
An important step will be to use native cells they can heal many diseases even cancer because of their ability to convert into other cell types. This area is way more complicated but a team of scientists has already bread a beating mouse heart.

The third part of the first step is the nanotechnology. Especially in combating cancer nanotechnology gives great solutions. Ferro fluids could be injected into the bloodstream and automatically concentrate on cancer cells. Then you only have to overheat them with high frequency magnetic fields. This process has already been tested with very promising results.

Step 2 (2030 to 2070)

In the middle of the century the genetic therapy will be so far developed that we can heal nearly every congenital disease they are triggered by only one or two genomes. But there will also be the opportunity to improve genomes, which brings us to the question what we want to become as mankind. We will be able to give our children superhuman abilities but this raises ethical issues. 

Michio Kaku also discribes the possibility of side effects. In tests with two different mice, one with a genome that makes it smarter and other mice without this genome, scientists researched that in many tests these mice seemed to know too much. The scientists deduced from this that a equation between remembering and forgetting is natural and needed. 
Even if genetic improvement is illegal today it will be nearly impossible to stop them.

Step 3 (2070 to 2100)

Probably the most interesting part of the futuristic medicine is to stop the aging process. To accomplish this masterpiece we have to define what the aging process is. Today scientists are agreed that aging is an array of mistakes on genetic and cellular level, for example free radicals can emerge in the metabolism that leads to oxidations, they harm the sensitive mass balance in the cells. The death is no how inevitable. Recently a few interesting things happened on this area. For example a team of scientists showed that yeast cells which live longer than normal can be bred in a laboratory. Also the lifespan of fruit flies could be extended by 70%. And in 1991 Thomas Johnson isolated the genome he called age-1, which is responsible for the aging process in nematodes and can extend their lifespan by 110%. Today there is an array of genomes known they organize the aging process in lower developed organisms. In contrast to these organisms it is a much more complicated task to isolate genomes of human they live longer than others, but with a huge data bank in which every genome is listed with the personal information, computers could find out the genome which is responsible to the human aging process by comparing genomes of old and young people. Around 2100 we probably can roll the aging process back, which lets us live more than 1000 years long, while using this technology. The real immortality will then be achieved by a mix of the therapies above, including breading new organs, genetic therapies and new detection methods to find and heal for example cancer before a tumor can grow.

 

Conclusion

I think one can definitely say that the immortality of the human being is possible and the progress will bring us to the point what we really want to be. Is the immortality really the right way or should we abort this progress as good as we can? Well, I think we cannot abort it and there is no escape in front of these questions.

Resources

"Physics of the future" by Michio Kaku