1. Gene Therapy
Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. In the future, this technique may allow doctors to treat a disorder by inserting a gene into a patient’s cells instead of using drugs or surgery. Researchers are testing several approaches to gene therapy, including:
- Replacing a mutated gene that causes disease with a healthy copy of the gene.
- Inactivating, or “knocking out,” a mutated gene that is functioning improperly.
- Introducing a new gene into the body to help fight a disease.
Giving us other animals' genes could also let us re-grow limbs & fight diseases. Although gene therapy is a promising treatment option for a number of diseases (including inherited disorders, some types of cancer, and certain viral infections), the technique remains risky and is still under study to make sure that it will be safe and effective. Gene therapy is currently only being tested for the treatment of diseases that have no other cures.
2. Longevity Pill
There is a new drug, rapamycin, which has worked wonders for the longevity of mice. Mice typically live 2.5 years. But with this drug, some mice are living 4+ years. More importantly, at the age of 4 years, these mice do not look that old. They look much like their younger counterparts with a lean body, full black hair, and a high level of energy and activity. By looking at them, you would never guess their advanced age.
Rapamycin appears to slow down the cellular process of aging. Specifically, it appears to provide some form of protection to the heart and liver, two organs that are crucial for maintaining good health. It also appears to reduce the frequency of tumors, reducing the chances of cancer. So, the mice do not just live longer; they remain in improved health for much of their life span. It triggers the anti-aging enzyme called Sirtuin 1 and could extend our lifetime by 15%, might be on the market by 2018.
3. Bionics
Ekso Bionics is currently developing and manufacturing intelligently powered exoskeleton bionic devices that can be strapped on as wearable robots to enhance the strength, mobility, and endurance of soldiers and paraplegics. In the field of computer science, the study of bionics has produced artificial neurons, artificial neural networks, and swarm intelligence. Evolutionary computation was also motivated by bionics ideas but it took the idea further by simulating evolution in silico and producing well-optimized solutions that had never appeared in nature.
4. Infusion of young blood
Villeda, first author of one of the studies at the University of California in San Francisco found that blood from three-month-old mice reversed some age-related changes in the brains of 18-month-old mice. The animals grew more and stronger neural connections in a region called the hippocampus, meaning the brain cells could talk to each other more effectively, according to a report in Nature Medicine. An 18-month-old mouse is considered to be equivalent in age to a 70-year-old person.
Villeda went on to inject blood plasma – or blood without the blood cells – from young mice into older animals. The infusions had a striking impact on the animals' performance. Villeda said the anti-ageing effect was linked to a protein called Creb. The protein is identical in mice and humans and it is also present in the bloodstream in humans. Our preliminary analyses suggest that it is similarly down-regulated with age, so we think its effects are likely to translate to humans.
5. 3D printer
From a human ear, to perfectly functioning valves, 3D printers are already being used in medicine, but now scientists in the U.S. are attempting to build a whole human heart using the versatile piece of kit. Their ultimate goal is to create a new heart for a patient using their own cells that could be transplanted. They think it will be possible to print an entire heart in three to five years' time and for it to be tested in humans in less than a decade.
"We go layer by layer through the organ, analyzing each layer as we go through the organ, and we then are able to send that information, through the computer and actually design the organ for the patient" says Anthony Atala, Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It basically uses living cells instead of ink to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago, guy who was born with spina bifida and whose kidneys and bladder weren't working.
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