25 Mind-Blowing Medical breakthroughs You Could Witness

Imagine being in any country’s hospital and not having to worry about a language barrier. That’s the beauty of the universal language translator. Tech companies are already actively working on this technology with an earpiece that sits in your ear and syncs up with your smartphone translator, but eventually, it could become much more sophisticated.

While we do have antiretroviral therapy, researchers are still keen to effectively cure HIV for good. In fact, they’re hopeful the latest research will get them there before 2020. From immunotherapy to gene therapy, future technologies will likely give us that cure.

While current surgery methods save many lives, it’s still invasive and requires months of healing. Ultrasound surgery would change all of that. Right now the technology already exists, but it’s rare and in its early stages. One day, we might have the ability to perform more non-invasive surgeries for a number of diseases.

If you’re not a fan of needles and hate getting your vaccine shots, one day you might not have to deal with them at all. Researchers have already developed a patch with micro-needles that would inject the vaccine. It’s painless, and many think it’ll likely replace needle injections.

With smartphones, at-home diagnostics is more common than ever, and it’s only just getting started. A company called Mammoth Biosciences is developing a medical kit to find and diagnose potential problems, diseases, or traits in your body. They think it’ll be like a “Dr. Google” to map your DNA and be able to search for issues.

Artificial Intelligence in hospitals is already here, and it’ll only continue to get more advanced and personal. In the future, you’ll likely talk more to a computer to diagnose your problem than an actual human. AI systems will also be able to scan and diagnose your body at a much higher rate of accuracy than a human doctor.

With wearables like Fitbit and Apple Watch, its become common for people to track their heart rate, steps, and calories burned. However, one day, we could have sensors monitoring every aspect of our bodies as a health preventative method.

Technically, growing organs is already a medical breakthrough. Researchers have been growing human organs inside animals before transplanting them to patients. Eventually, with future technologies, growing organs could be commonplace and made to order.

Scientists believe treatments for common causes of blindness will be available in five years. Using stem cell therapy, doctors have already given patients back their sight enough to be able to read. It’s a rare treatment now, but they think it’ll become very common in the coming years.

One day, paralysis may be a thing of the past. Recently, the FDA approved the pilot testing of a new spinal cord procedure that could cure paralysis for thousands of people. Called Neuro-Spinal Scaffold, it’s applied at the injury spot and provides support while also helping the healing process.

Right now, people with Type 1 Diabetes need to take regular injections of insulin. Hopefully, with new advancements, that’ll be a thing of the past. Researchers have already used stem cells to help treat patients with Type 1 Diabetes. About 422 million people worldwide have the disease.

Heart disease is the number one killer in America. Thankfully, more help to combat it could just be around the corner. LDL Cholesterol is the bad kind, causing plaque to build up in arteries, which causes heart attacks and strokes. However, new studies have found an injection, acting as a kind of vaccine, that could help reduce LDL Cholesterol in patients for their entire life.

Roughly 21 million people suffer from sleep apnea. Those who seek treatments use a loud and obnoxious C.P.A.P. machine to regulate their breathing. Fortunately, a new implant to help with sleep apnea is already being marketed by medical companies. Not only have tests shown it is effective, but also quieter and smaller.

Already hospitals are investing in cutting-edge technology for their operating rooms to make procedures less risky and more effective. With the increasing advancement of artificial intelligence and new hardware, we’ll likely see a surgery breakthrough where it’s not as scary to have major procedures anymore.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have already developed new treatments to help limited damage and repair the brain after a patient has a stroke. It’s likely we’ll see more medical breakthroughs regarding brain repair and healing for a variety of diseases.

Speaking of the brain, scientists are on the hunt to halt or cure dementia and Alzheimers. Recently, they’ve discovered an anti-depressant drug could help halt dementia. Futuristic technologies to repair the brain could also help in this fight.

Scientists know the genes responsible for aging and have been actively working to come up with ways to either slow down the clock or reverse the process entirely. Using a breakthrough DNA editing technology called CRISPR, researchers are hopeful these genes could be edited and manipulated so aging is no longer a thing.

Roughly 3,200 people are on the waiting list for a heart transplant. As a solution, doctors and researchers may use a pigs heart, wash away the cells until it’s a “ghost heart” and then inject that heart with human stem cells to make it usable for humans. So far, the technique has worked for both rat and pig hearts, but one day, researchers would like to take the next step and make a human heart.

Knee replacement surgery could be much less problematic thanks to a new technology by scientists to help replace cartilage. The “bouncy bio-glass” mimics cartilage and can be 3D printed to fit in the damaged areas.

Today, we have artificial skin, but it’s nowhere near the real thing. However, according to a report in the Science journal, researchers are coming closer than ever to mimicking real skin with the capability of touch signals sent to nerve cells.

Some think by 2025, every human baby will routinely have their DNA mapped at birth. Having DNA mapped could help doctors provide more precise treatments and also be able to pinpoint potential risk of disease down the road.

With the gene editing tool CRISPR, scientists can alter genes in human embryos, preventing a whole host of potential diseases. This new technology is ever-advancing. In 2017, scientists already did gene editing trials on human embryos. Of course, while fixing scores of diseases would be good, ethical concerns are raised, including creating an entirely new species of humanity.

Increasing advancements in nanotechnology could lead to a wide swath of cures for a whole host of disease, including Type 1 Diabetes, asthma, and multiple sclerosis. In 2012, Northwestern Medicine researchers found that nanotechnology could help halt MS in mice.

An estimated 50 million men and 30 million women experience hair loss of some sort. Over the years, many have tried to treat the condition but haven’t been able to cure it. Recently, however, researchers at the University of Southern California were able to regrow hair follicles on the backs of mice using stem cells, raising hopes that regrowing human hair could be possible.

Honestly, curing cancer is a long way off if it’s even a real possibility. That’s the bad news. The good news is more treatments have become available to combat it, including the latest immunotherapy techniques and a potential “vaccine” that cured tumors in 97% of mice.