| Life in 2020 |
|
| Written by admin | ||||||
Page 3 of 4 Bye bye, cancer By 2020, several key research areas should be having considerable impact in the battle against disease, cancer in particular. "Cancer will not be cured in one massive battle," cautions Robert Weinberg, the distinguished researcher who discovered the first human oncogene (a gene that causes normal cells to turn into tumours). "Nevertheless, during the next decade and a half, there will be many individual skirmishes that will result in death rates from most common cancers being pushed down progressively." For Weinberg, based at the Whitehead Institute within the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of Boston, one of the main breakthroughs will involve discoveries of how to use drugs – currently administered on their own – in more effective combinations. In addition, the Human Genome Project, which has provided researchers with a complete inventory of all human genes, will make it increasingly easy to design drugs that attack very specific tumours. "My guess is that about 25 per cent of cancers that currently are fatal will be treated successfully, either cured or reduced to chronic but tolerable conditions," he says. Such optimism is shared by Ian Frazer, a cancer expert at the University of Queensland who famously developed a vaccine for human papillomavirus (Cosmos, Issue 5, p10). His concern is primarily focussed on prevention. "A quarter of all cancers are caused by chronic infections," he points out. For example, the Helicobacter bacterium is linked to gastric cancer; the Hepatitis C virus to liver cancer; the Epstein-Barr virus to various lymphomas; and the HTLV-1 virus to leukaemia. "Vaccines against all these infections are likely to be developed by 2020," Frazer says. In addition, scientists stress that lifestyle changes could also have striking effects on general health by 2020. "If there were serious reductions in cigarette smoking, then overall cancer deaths would decline by 30 to 35 per cent; while serious changes in diet, moving from meat to vegetarian diets, would produce another 10 to 15 per cent," adds Weinberg. And given the plunge in cigarette consumption now occurring among men in the West, there is hope that lifestyle-related cancers will continue to slump over the next two decades. And then there is stem cell science, the revolutionary technology that could be used to create neurons, heart muscle and pancreatic tissue for patients, using cells taken from their own skin. Using cloning technology, an embryo would be created from an individual skin cell. Then stem cells would be extracted from that embryo. In turn these would be used to create cell lines, such as heart or pancreas cells that could be put back into patients as lifesaving transplants that would not trigger immune rejections. It is a breathtaking prospect. However, the reputation of stem cell research was badly undermined last year by the revelation that pioneer scientist Hwang Woo-suk, of South Korea, had faked much of his research (Cosmos, Issue 8, p64). Experts remain confident, however, and argue that stem cell treatments should be well established by 2020. "We will be able to use stem cells not only for transplants but also to create banks of human tissue, both healthy and diseased, in order to test potential new drugs on them," says Huseyin Mehmet of Imperial College London. "It will bring unprecedented accuracy and cost-effectiveness to drug development." Robot dawn Floor sweeping, dusting, window cleaning, picking up after the kids, sorting the laundry, folding clothes, ironing, tidying the house: such activities are the banes of our lives. Yet if engineers are right, by 2020, we may be able to forget such chores, thanks to the development of domestic robots. "We already have grass-cutting robots the public have happily accepted scuttling around their gardens," says robotics expert Gordon Wyeth of Brisbane's University of Queensland. "Now robots able to walk and balance on two legs are becoming commonplace in laboratories, and computing power is constantly rising while costs fall." As a result, home robots will be the next consumer 'must have' by 2020 when they will have become as ubiquitous as personal computers today. They will be smart, ready to attack their tasks out of the box and will team with humans and other smart robots. "I am betting most home robots will end up being named and treated like pets of sorts," adds Wyeth. "It will create a whole new industry where major players will reap the rewards just as Microsoft has done with personal computers." Smart dressing Robots will not have it all their own way, however. Indeed, they can expect to face considerable technological competition in the home, thanks to developments in materials science and nanotechnology. At the University of New South Wales in Sydney, for example, researchers – led by Rose Amal and Michael Brungs – are developing self-cleaning surfaces for use in hospitals as well as domestic kitchens and bathrooms. These surfaces will be coated with particles that absorb ultraviolet light at a particular wavelength, exciting electrons and giving the particles an oxidising quality stronger than any commercial bleach. The surfaces will also be designed so that droplets cannot form on them – water will run off, washing as it goes. In addition, scientists are working on materials that will not only change our homes but will transform the way we dress through the creation of 'intelligent clothes'. Special fabrics, fitted with monitors, will study our health throughout the day, while we sleep, work and exercise. For example, at the University of Wollongong, south of Sydney, researchers have created a fabric that emits a groaning sound to warn sportsmen and women if they are stretching or moving in ways that could harm them. Another concept being developed by scientists involves embedding clothes with mobile phone chips. "The idea is that if you get injured out hill-walking or skiing, sensors will detect physiological and temperature changes to your body," says Jane McCann of Derby University in England. "The garment will alert the mobile phone chip to call the nearest hospital."
|
||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
