Our world has never known a moment of greater promise for improving human health. Many health advances of today have a long arc of discovery it revealed that begins basic research with a strong, consistent support. Largely funded because of basic research from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which pursues its roots to 1887, Americans are living longer and healthier lives. Life expectancy for a child born in the US has grown today to more than 78 years in 1900 for 47 years. Among the advances that make this possible, a decline of 70% in the death rate from cardiovascular diseases States have helped over the past 50 years, and a decline of more than 1% per year rate of death from cancer in recent decades. As another dramatic example thanks to the remarkable progress in antiretroviral drugs, the majority of Americans infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) can now look forward to an expectation of almost normal life. But despite these astonishing progress remains to be done much more. To expand Among the many efforts now ready for the future health is to change those that exploit the power of gene-editing for the range of cancer immunotherapy, the map of the human brain and build a solid foundation for a more individual approach to treatment health, often called the precision medicine. And together with the bright promise of prevention, treatment and some of the men to treat the most feared diseases are some important questions, such as those discovered in order to ensure it is applied ethically and fairly. One of the great benefits of basic research which is impossible to predict where it might lead. For example, no one would have thought that the relatively routine efforts to improve the sequence bacterial genomes and production of yogurt, may lead to the development of a revolutionary new gene-editing tool. But it did! At the end of 1980, strange sequences of DNA repeated cluster called at regular intervals short repetitions palindrome (CRISPR) in bacteria, the scientists found, and a few decades later discovered other researchers that the CRISPR system helped yogurts are bacteria viral invaders benefits department recognizing and snipping their DNA. After CRISPR the exact mechanism was found the gene exquisitely precise editing technology has been developed rapidly in a wide range of attitudes toward biomedical work. Researchers believe CRISPR and their gene-technology altering a huge potential waiting to treat or cure thousands even diseases for which we understand the molecular mechanisms but the treatments, muscular dystrophy, Huntington’s disease are limited or unavailable, such as’ sickle cell disease and a long list of others. All these exciting treatment options specific to the DNA of cells include processing can help the patient expected, but not transmitted to future generations. This is where the genetic modification, drops a crucial ethical boundary. remain NIH and virtually all credible international organizations on clinical hereditary gene editing applications besides involving human embryos, sperm or eggs with gene modification. These interventions are difficult to justify doctor and would irreversibly change the DNA of the design of future generations of mankind. Another rapidly developing field of cancer immunotherapy, is also the fruit of decades of basic research. In fact it showed a fascinating study of immunotherapy that a successful approach, called Checkpoint of a cumulative century inhibitors work was created by more than 7,000 scientists, including 2018 Nobel laureate James Allison and Dr. Tasuku Honjo. Other pioneers in the patient’s immune system efforts to fight cancer: Dr. Carl June and Dr Steven Rosenberg, trying to win the now to expand and develop their strategies based on the cells, leaving them with many more people benefit more species originate cancer. While the cancer immunotherapy is still in its infancy, some impressive reports begin on its ability to save lives to roll in. For example, the new survival data from one of the longest running trials of immunotherapy in combination approach checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic melanoma- with shows that 52% of patients after five years was still alive. Before the advent of immunotherapy, the survival rate at five years was for this deadly form of skin cancer, only about 5%. Perhaps the research efforts not base have one goal more ambitious than the NIH-led Brain Research through advancing innovative initiative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) to develop the necessary tools to understand how the human brain has about 100 billion cells, each with approximately 1,000 compounds that interact in real time. As a result, we will have a better understanding of how the brain works to produce our motor skills, memory acquisition and recovery, cognition, feelings and behavior. Brain diseases are still some of the greatest mysteries of modern medicine. So the goal of progress is sustained upwards of 500 researchers in more than 100 brain initiative institutions progress in neuroscience, such as the International Human Genome Project for genetic research has made. This understanding will open new ways to treat the disease, autism, depression, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia, stroke, traumatic brain injury Alzheimer’s and other neurological disorders. Basic research also plays an important role in prevention. Currently, most of the recommendations on how to prevent disease, the reaction of the average person waiting. Precision Medicine is an innovative approach for the diagnosis, management and prevention of diseases that lead the individual differences in the genes, environment and lifestyle into consideration. To realize the full potential of precision to detect Medicine, NIH launched in 2018, the All of Us Research Program May a different cohort of 1 million or more search volunteers from the United States to build, among other things, will all they strive to do the illnesses everything what did the heart Framingham Study for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases done. Started in 1948, the Framingham study initially wrote more than 5,000 residents of this small town in Massachusetts and over time, their children and grandchildren, up to 15,000 volunteers. Thanks to them we now know much more about high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking and other modifiable risk factors for cardiovascular disease – knowledge that has helped save millions of lives. Until recently, the majority of clinical studies and trials were of European origin with participants typically held by the ancestors. As a result, there are many new drugs to treat cancer and other serious diseases, but often have developed their effectiveness in African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, because they were not included in the studies. It has not been established that must change. To ensure that people of all benefit from advances in precision medicine, all of us have made it a priority to sign up volunteers from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in medical research, including African Americans, Hispanic and Latino, low-income and rural communities. So far, the results have been encouraging. have more subscribers than half of the nearly 210,000 people in the middle of the previously racial or ethnic minorities, and almost 80% of under-represented groups in medical research. We will use the latest methods and approaches in information science merge to apply, integrate and analyze biological source for the information from a variety of ecological, socio-economic and spatial. With the data in a large resource with adequate security and privacy combined, the process is performing the search easier, faster and ultimately less costly. All of us is just one of many innovative steps, biomedical research takes the next generation of resources to build, which will address many of the complex and difficult issues to help healthcare today. What we this transformation tools and technologies to learn how to reduce the costs translational timeline of scientific discovery of the real world therapies shortening and valuable new information on offer about addressing socioeconomic inequalities in health status both here and abroad, These results can then, that people who have to ensure proceeds used all my life, all over the world, it is healthier than ever. And this is not the goal of the entire biomedical research, it would be easy, translational and clinical? We look forward to the time when the long period of scientific discovery eventually overcomes many of the chronic diseases that destroy too many lives today. □ illustration by Justin Metz for TIME Picture copyright
The director of the NIH puts his vision of the future of medical science
