The Science Of The Next 150 Years: 50 Years in the Future

It is 2063. you walk into the doctor's office, and a nurse takes a sample of saliva, blood or a prenatal cell and applies it to a microchip the size of a letter on this page on a handheld device. Minutes later the device reads the test results. The multicolored fluorescence pattern on its display reveals the presence of DNA sequences that cause or influence any of 1,200-plus single-gene disorders. Fortunately, regulatory authorities have approved a cure for each one of these diseases: gene therapy.

This article was originally published with the title A Cure for What Ails You.

9 Comments

1. 1. rshoff 03:41 PM 1/6/13

   "It is 2063. you walk into the doctor's office..."
   
   Note to author: I won't be alive in 2063. I'm very pleased for whoever does walk into a doctor's office in 2063, I'm sure. But most of the readers of this article will not be one of them.
   
   However it is exciting to see that we are evolving toward medicine that treats the cause and not just the symptom. How can we more quickly and efficiently get science off the researcher's desk and into the practitioner's office? Medical science does not let us down nearly as much as medical care does.

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2. 2. colros 04:39 PM 1/6/13

   So does that mean that when there is gene therapy for high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis, we will all be able to eat 20,000 calories per day, weigh 800 pounds, play video games all day and live to 120? Cool!

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3. 3. N49th 08:14 PM 1/6/13

   2063, I barely made it past 2007 at age 48. thankfully someone said, zap him again.
   Gene therapy holds promise. Don't over state it.

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4. 4. eightsquare 03:36 AM 1/7/13

   I'll be alive in 2063(I hope) I'll be 64!

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5. 5. Rev.Corvette 04:13 AM 1/7/13

   ..and we'll all have flying cars by 2010, right?... It's not the Scientists or Doctors that concern me... it will be the regulatory authorities unfortunately that skew this grandiose vision of the future. It may not take more than 50 years to find a cure for each one of the 1,200-plus single-gene disorders as proposed. But it will be long after 2063 before any regulatory authorities (law-makers?) have agreed on and approved a gene therapy cure for many genetic defects.

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6. 6. alan6302 09:00 AM 1/7/13

   A genetic cure for the human race is predicted. Fortunately millions will survive....this time.

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7. 7. nholt 04:28 PM 1/8/13

   If Congress hadn't cockblocked stem cell research so often, we'd already be reading about such breakthroughs.

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8. 8. nholt 04:29 PM 1/8/13

   Europe is SO FAR ahead of the U.S. in research. Why? Because SCIENCE, not Big Pharma, is the driving force.

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9. 9. bucketofsquid 11:50 AM 1/9/13

   Everything I've read about gene therapy indicates that the success rate is low and the risks are high. Fix that and maybe I'll buy into the idea of gene therapy.

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