How technology will absorb Medicine
How Technology Will Eat MedicineVivek Wadhwa (Twitter: @wadhwa), translated by Evgenia Ryabtseva
The most significant statement made by Apple in 2014 was not devoted to the appearance of a larger iPhone. It was dedicated to Apple's first steps in the medical industry. The company's first medical device was the Apple Watch wristwatch with the HealthKit program installed in it, which is a platform for organizing health data, similar to the well-known iTunes application. However, Apple is still two steps behind Google, IBM and hundreds of newly created companies that realized much earlier that medicine was turning into information technology and the healthcare market, estimated at billions of dollars, was already prepared for implementation.
According to the author's forecasts, in 2015 the technical industry will take the first unsteady steps towards transforming medicine. The technologies that will make it possible to do this are developing exponentially, their power and productivity are continuously increasing against the background of reduced costs and equipment sizes. Significant breakthroughs will be made by the end of this decade.
Medical devices developed by companies such as Apple, Microsoft and Samsung are based on MEMS sensors, which are one of the most rapidly improving technologies. They allow you to measure indicators such as heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure and activity level and send the collected data to cloud computing platforms like HealthKit. They can be embedded in wristwatches, band-aids, clothes and even contact lenses. Yes, in January 2014, Google announced work on contact lenses that allow measuring glucose levels in human lacrimal fluid and transmitting the data obtained using an antenna whose thickness is less than the thickness of a human hair. In July, she announced the transfer of the license for this technology to Novartis, which will launch a product for patients with diabetes.
In the near future, we will have sensors at our disposal that monitor practically all aspects of the functioning of the body, both inside and outside.
Advances in microfluidic technologies make new inexpensive methods of complex diagnostics developed by Theranos a reality. They allow the analysis of parameters such as cancer markers, cholesterol and cocaine using a single drop of blood. However, these approaches that require laboratory conditions will soon become obsolete due to the emergence of new methods based on nanobiophysics that allow for blood analysis without leaving the patient's bed. One of the most promising is the portable nanotechnology platform Gene-Radar developed by Nanobiosym, which uses biological nanodevices to quickly and accurately determine genetic "fingerprints". It will allow detecting diseases such as HIV and the Ebola virus and receiving results on a mobile phone within a few minutes. At the same time, the cost of the entire procedure will be only a hundredth of the cost of traditional laboratory tests.
By comparing these data with the information contained in electronic medical records, as well as with data collected by smartphones on the level of activity and lifestyle, systems based on the principle of artificial intelligence will monitor a person's condition for 24 hours, 7 days a week. They will warn us about the approaching disease and recommend the necessary medications and desirable methods of correcting lifestyle and habits. Watson technology, originally developed by IBM in order to win the participants of the Jeopardy quiz show, is already able to diagnose cancer with higher accuracy than doctors do. In the near future, it will surpass doctors in the diagnosis of any diseases.
Equipped with sensors and applications developed by technology companies, an ordinary smartphone will turn into a medical device like a tricorder from Star Wars. To date, 10 finalists have already been selected from the Tricorder X PRIZE competition announced by Qualcomm for the development of a device capable of "diagnosing patients better or not worse than a commission of certified doctors," with a prize fund of 10 million US dollars. After observing the operation of one of these devices, Scanadu, doubts almost disappear that by the beginning of 2016, when the winners of the competition will be determined, we will see a lot of revolutionary technologies.
By collecting data on millions of patients, high-tech companies will have the opportunity to absorb and transform the pharmaceutical industry, which today still uses a limited amount of data collected during clinical trials, and in some cases prefers to ignore inconvenient information. The new data can be used to accurately analyze the drugs taken by the patient, identify drugs that actually had a positive effect, caused the development of undesirable side effects or new diseases and had both effects simultaneously.
We must not forget about the revolution in genomics. To date, the cost of sequencing the human genome has dropped from 100 million to about 1,000 US dollars. By the end of the decade, it will probably already be comparable to the cost of a blood test. This means that the "bits and bytes" that form a human being have been decoded and we have actually turned into a kind of software.
Genomic analysis is already being used to select treatments for brain and breast cancer. Eric Green, director of the US National Institute for the Study of the Human Genome, explains that about 10 years ago, researchers were working on methods for using DNA sequencing and computing technologies to interpret the genome and study its biology. Now they are using these technologies to improve diagnostic methods, medicines and clinical approaches. He suggests that in the near future doctors will select a method of treating diseases based on information about the patient's genome. This is made possible by improving the understanding of the relationship between the genome, human characteristics and diseases.
That is why Google and Amazon compete in offering their services for organizing a repository for genomic data. They agree to store information about the genome almost for free (for $ 25), as this will allow them to look into genomes in the same way as they look into electronic correspondence and search query history.
Google is also developing nanoparticles, which are a combination of a material with magnetic properties and antibodies or proteins that can detect cancer cells and various molecules inside the body, communicate with them and send information to a computer embedded in a wristwatch.
However, the ambitions of entrepreneurs go far beyond the diagnosis and treatment of diseases
In March 2014, genome sequencing pioneer Craig Venter announced the creation of Human Longevity, a company dedicated to the development of cell therapy methods using genomics data to increase human lifespan. And Google has made significant investments in Calico, a company that studies age-related diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The specialists of this company want to understand the mechanisms of aging and, ultimately, increase human life expectancy.
Researchers working in the developing field of synthetic biology, which allows the collection of DNA with any sequence of nucleotides, create new organisms and synthetic forms of life. Entrepreneurs have developed software for the "design" of new organisms. Despite the fact that it is to a certain extent frightening and risky, they "design" new drugs, therapeutic vaccines and microorganisms. They hope to completely defeat deadly diseases.
The technologies of tissue engineering and three-dimensional printing will gradually merge into one, which will make it possible to "print" personalized organs and modify the human body. Imagine that exoskeletons and bionic devices for increasing strength, as well as improving vision and hearing, which we saw in the popular TV series "The Six Million Dollar Man" in the 70s, may also become a reality in the near future.
Perhaps Google is trying to make the biggest breakthrough to date. She studies the functioning of the human brain. One of the company's leading researchers Ray Kurzweil embodies the theory of intelligence outlined in his book "How to Create a Mind" (How to Create a Mind). He believes that with the help of technology, we will be able to improve our intelligence and create backups of our minds in the cloud.
2014 was the inflection point of the technology absorption curve of medicine. Today, it is still unknown which technological advances will actually have an impact on humanity, and which will remain nothing more than "cool" scientific experiments. However, it is obvious that we have entered the era of acceleration and there are both great prospects and great dangers ahead of us.
For links to articles, companies, device descriptions, etc., see the original article.
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