Medicine: the appliance of science
A cure for HIV? A new approach to obesity? Tailor-made therapies for cancer? Medical science surges aheadMore than once last year, researchers described leaps in medical science that were so breathtaking, and held so much potential for patients, that they immediately joined the list of fields to watch in the year ahead. In most cases, the work was, and is, at an early stage and its future success far from certain. Such is the nature of science. Most of today's breakthroughs will be tomorrow's failures. But some may go down in history for transforming how medicine is done.Often, medical science surges ahead when different areas converge. That's the case with genome editing, which gives scientists the extraordinary ability to rewrite genes in living organisms. At the heart of the process are enzymes that can sever DNA at chosen locations. But to be useful, it required advances in computational genetics, and exquisite techniques to manipulate biological cells.Then there is the microbiome, the name given to the community of microbes that lives in and on our bodies. The trillions of bacteria that live in our guts, for example, influence our development, our metabolism, and our risk of scores of diseases. The prospect of treating, or preventing disease, through manipulating the microbiome, encouraging some bugs here, and fewer there, is a radical departure for medicine that now looks entirely realistic.Cost is one of the greatest barriers to medical progress, so the falling price o...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Ian Sample Tags: The Guardian Genetics Biology Medical research Microbiology Society Features Cancer Aids and HIV Chemistry Biochemistry and molecular biology Science Source Type: news
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