Future Meds Today

During the Second World War, British Bomber Command created a squadron, which they named the Pathfinder Squadron; the British were bombing Europe at night, and they were finding that a lot of their bombs were going wide of the target; collateral damage was not really a problem back then, other than it was a waste of effort; this is a bit like some medicines today, we take a medicine, and it attacks the whole body, not just the parts that we want to affect; and the side affects, or collateral damage, can be devastating, or keep a useful medication off the market;
   So what did the Pathfinders do? They flew in ahead of the main stream, at low altitude, and with pin point accuracy, would literally, "Light up the target area" with incendiary flares, which the main stream of bombers, could use to place their bomb aiming instruments on; thus increase the accuracy and effectiveness.

Bring the age of medication to the 21st century, and combine new technology, with the philosophy of the Path Finder Squadron, and a whole new arena of drugs comes into existence; take a pill that has properties that identify the area or cells that are to be attacked. Light up the cells for further attack, via other medications, nano-tech machines, or even computer guided laser surgery; all for pin point accuracy.

   For now this is being researched for Cancer Treatment, but it may be that we expand this to treat other diseases;

   One added advantage of this, is that it isn't necessary to be able to "see" the target cells, it is just enough to know that they are there. For instance, technology is going to be able to identify a tumor almost immediately it has begun forming. At this time, we are able to identify tumors or growths, in cancer cells only after they have begun to affect the body, in the near future, we will be able to detect them very early; making early treatment all the more important and effective. Instead of attacking 30,000 cancer cells replicating every 2 weeks, we will be able to detect 200 spread out in the body, replicating every 4 months; and dealing with them without needing to identify where; the technology or the medications will find them. Doctors will only have to be sure that they have detected their presence in the body, via say, blood, saliva, urine, perspiration or expelled breath.

   The machines for detecting minute changes in the human body are already coming into existence. I have mentioned in other blogs, the Star-Trek Tricorder, XPrize; but there are other developments happening in the realm of detection, that have preceded this XPrize, and have nothing to do with it, that may be here before the Tricorder. We are on the verge, of having CT, and MIR scanners in the doctor's office, that will be hooked up to the examination bed, which will in the future become a diagnostic bed, with multiple instrumentation to examine the body laying upon it.

In the last century there was a movie, where a team of medical professionals were shrunk and injected into a human body. 13 years ago, Nano-Technology produced the first parts of a nano-engine; today we are working on manufacturing small Nano bots for injection into the human blood stream, for various treatments and identifications of malfunctioning organs. Instead of an Angio-plasty, and Stents, a patient may be injected with Nano-bots with the ability to clean the arteries of the body of plaque on an out patient basis; when done the bots will just be expelled or absorbed by the body.

    In a study of rats, with damaged heart muscles, from heart attacks, their stem cells were injected into their heart muscles, with the idea to test what the effect would be. Hoping the damaged muscles would be repaired. Well, the damaged area was repaired, but also, the stem cells went on to regenerate other parts of the heart's muscle. The question now is, what would be the effect on the whole body, if stems cells were injected that could affect a healing of say, torn ligaments, or arthritic knees. Then too, where would they stop working? Medicine is only just beginning to "play" with stem cells, now that the constraint of not being able to use the patient's own cells, has been removed.

  100 years ago, most people could not afford an accurate thermometer, and 20 years ago, having a blood pressure monitor was low tech, and the blood test kit for blood sugar, was low tech strips that only gave an approximation; today we have thermometers, blood sugar monitors, and blood pressure monitors that are high tech, with LED read outs immediately; but for the most part they are invasive to use. A woman in the US, has developed at one of the Universities the technology to test blood sugar using the patient's own saliva; no more sticking a body part for blood. But wait, others have been developing other tech that works on the saliva, the expelled breath, and the bodies own skin temperature and perspiration. It will only take a convergence of technology to bring these together and produce a machine in our homes that will be as ubiquitous as the thermometer has been for the past 50 years, and in another 30 years will be a common as the wrist watch was, part of our everyday attire. Plugging us in to a whole new order of medical detection and diagnosis. 
 
    Sci-Fi tries to predicted the future of society and technology, but more and more, I see society and technology outstripping Sci-Fi; Jules Verne, predicted the Nuclear Submarine and The Rocket to the Moon; but even his predictions happened almost 100 years later. In the 60s Sci-Fi predicted our world, but it only has taken 30-50 years for some of the more outlandish ideas to become fact. And in 20 years anything we predict today will be on the drawing board somewhere in the world.

Welcome to the future, have your boarding pass ready!!