Humanity, according to Michael Zey, a noted sociologist, has the wherewithal to controlling its own destiny, owing to sensational breakthroughs — a new-fangled launch-pad that initiates a sort of hyper-progress for reshaping our planet. You name it: gargantuan macro-engineering projects, artificial islands, transatlantic tunnels, underground cities, mammoth irrigation schemes etc., including a bold, new world of transportation, viz., super-trains, super-flights, smart highways and electric cars. Of a globe akin to a cybernetic factory, where there will be greater productivity — a compatible marriage between computer, man and machinery.
All the same, one inescapable fact remains. That science is as much poised to powerfully perceive something beyond tomorrow, especially in medicine. Here goes —
There’s no need to ‘kill’ the diabolical HIV virus. A study suggests that it’d be ideal to make the body resistant to the virus. Research conducted at the Imperial College London and Johns Hopkins University, US, exposed HIV by removing cholesterol, from the cellular wall, while producing a large hole in the virus’s membrane and making it porous. This led to a powerful adaptive response, ‘jazzed-up’ by immune cells. It is suggested that this would bid fair to radically reduce the number of resources used to treating and fighting the disease and also offer new perspectives to combating other equally complex diseases in the future.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis [ALS], or Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a grave neurodegenerative disorder that paralyses its victims. There is no real, effective therapy for the disorder yet. A Northwestern Medicine study, in the US, has, for the first time, identified a common cause of all forms of ALS and deciphered its basis — a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain.
Scientists have developed a method of ‘leap-frogging’ liver cells too, or transmuting existing cells into a totally new form, at the Stanford University School of Medicine, US. This is the first time that cells have been shown to ‘leap-frog’ from one fundamentally different tissue type to another. The liver cells explicitly cross tissue-type boundaries to become fully resolute neural cells. This advance would be useful in generating essential cells for sick patients — and, ‘transforming’ potentially perilous cancerous identities into benign cells.
No area of medical research has set ‘ablaze’ the public imagination, as also hullabaloo, as stem cell therapy and research. Scientists can now make embryonic-like stem cells directly from skin cells — for a multitude of human diseases. New drugs based on stem cells are being developed. Also, with cheap and efficient means of manipulating stem cells within reach, fresh options are opening up for research that looks at generating new tissue, from synthetic, biological, or botanical ingredients, in a lab setting. This is radically poised to transform the way our organ donor systems work.
Think of our modern healthcare set up, and what you have is the sheer wealth, or glut, of data. Charts, blood cultures, past history, and so on — all of this information is increasingly essential in diagnosing and preventing deadly diseases, all right, yet medical institutions, physicians and healthcare professionals are struggling to finding ways to managing and efficiently utilising available data. It is here that the Internet, as also new information technology, among others, are a huge boon — including the much-favoured iPad. They have, in point of fact, revolutionised the way medicine is practiced — with better outcomes.
Robotic surgeries are no longer confined to science fiction, they are now scientific reality. Robotic tools offer surgeons the ability to operate on patients remotely. This not only reduces the cost of travel and other barriers towards receiving specialised care, it is also envisaged to lead to more efficient and less invasive surgeries and reduced overall medical costs. Besides, the advance in terms of robotic medical check-up is gaining ground. This is how it works — the robotic device, a mobile cart with a two-way video screen and medical monitoring equipment, is programmed to ‘plot’ through the frantic corridors of a hospital and record everything a doctor would need for diagnosis and treatment.
Dermatologists [skin specialists] have a new gizmo — a handheld tool for multispectral analysis of tissue morphology, or structure, and analysis. The tool reduces the number of patients left with needless biopsy scars, with the added advantage of eliminating the cost of unnecessary procedures. The gadget can optically scan the surface of a suspicious lesion at 10 electromagnetic wavelengths. The collected signals are processed using heavy-duty algorithms and matched against a catalogue of over 10,000 digital images of melanoma [skin cancer], for example, and other dermatological disorders for better treatment outcomes.
Just as scientists have begun to sing paeans of praise for the ‘electronic aspirin,’ can needle-free diabetes care and ‘nano-delivered’ anti-diabetic medicinal dosages be far behind? Medical scientists have developed technologies that would replace the poke with a patch. A transdermal biosensor reads blood analytes through the skin without drawing blood. This involves a handheld electric-toothbrush-like device that removes just enough top-layer skin cells to place the patient’s blood chemistry within the signal range of a patch-borne biosensor. The sensor collects one reading per minute and sends the data wirelessly to a remote monitor, triggering audible alarms when levels go out of the patient’s optimal range, while tracking glucose levels in the fullness of, or over, time.
Here’s yet another advance — a transcatheter aortic valve, a life-saving alternative to open-heart surgery for patients who need a new valve, but cannot bear the pangs, or rigours, of surgery. The valve is guided through the femoral artery — a large blood vessel in the thigh — by a catheter from a small incision near the groin; or, rib cage. The valve material is made of bovine tissue attached to a stainless-steel stent. It expands by inflating a small balloon placed in the valve space and dramatically cuts short hospital stay and the burden of high-cost medical care.
— First published in The Himalayan Times, Nepal
