MLAP 1568

Instructor:

Murphy Brown

Email: murphybrown1488@gmail.com

In looking to the future of medicine, there are basically two categories of innovations that researchers and scientists are working on: known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Known unknowns are the things that we know are problems and the active attempts to solve them. For example, there are many diseases out there that we have yet to find cures for. It should be highlighted just how incredible the work of Jonas Salk was in creating the vaccine for polio or Alexander Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin. The biggest diseases that we are working to cure in terms of their widespread damage are cancer and AIDS. Others that cause huge damage include Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. We can treat many of these diseases, but we are still not able to cure them. The other category is the unknown unknowns, which are the things that we might accidentally stumble across or could provide innovation in a way we never knew we needed. They can also come from using a new technology in the lens of the medical field.

For example, I read an article about some of the groundbreaking work being done in Israel with solar-powered laser scalpels. The scalpel is a tool that you might have thought was perfect, but they did not know that there was a cutting tool that was potentially more precise. Unless you used your Star Wars nerd brain to imagine light saber scalpels, you might never have thought that we could build a better mouse trap. Then, the Israelis not only did it, but did so in a sustainable way that utilizes the immense power of the sun, which is constantly shining on the desert climate.

Another new application of technology comes from the introduction of machine learning into medical tech. The basic concept of machine learning is that part of being good at anything comes from experience. The ability to access that experience can help you narrow down a diagnosis based on the data (symptoms) provided. If you hear that someone has a sharp pain below their belly button, you might think to check the appendix. Brains forget, but computers do not. When they receive data, they are able to process it more efficiently and recall things that you can’t as a human. Teaching the computer to recognize patterns is a way to help guide the diagnosis process. One specific application comes in brain scans. Based on past data, the computer can instantly highlight areas of note that the doctor can look into further.

As far as disease cures, there are new innovations all the time. One problem with treatment can come in the practical phase because the importance of medicine also means that the vetting process for new drugs is time-consuming and strenuous. From application to approval can take 15 years because of clinical studies and necessary delays. The pace of progress might seem painfully slow, but we are getting closer to cures for more and more. Genetic sequencing might be the next thing of the future. It is essentially what Angelina Jolie did to preemptively get surgery to reduce her risk of breast cancer and the advances are making it cheaper and cheaper until it will eventually become standard for diagnostics.

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