Revolutionary changes are taking place today in various fields. Medicine is also trying to keep up in this regard, despite its traditional conservatism. New drugs, new treatment methods, new technologies are being introduced into medicine. Most outdated treatment methods cannot be done without radical changes.

What we could only see a couple of years ago in science fiction books is now vigorously discussed at medical conferences dedicated to innovation. Much emphasis has recently been placed on computer technologies, which are being introduced into surgery and used for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.

In the medicine of the future, an important role is assigned not to the treatment of diseases, but to their prevention and early prognosis. The introduction of diagnostic devices is gaining momentum. Predicting the disease makes it possible to save on treating the patient.

Thanks to the Internet, consultations can be carried out remotely, which saves time not only for the patient, but also for the doctor.

Personal electronic medical record

One of the stages in improving modern medicine is the personalization of data and increased communication between doctors. Easy access to medical history allows you to prescribe timely and effective treatment.

Maintaining medical records can gradually move online. Cloud software is used to store large amounts of information on the Internet. Thanks to the Internet, doctors from different clinics have access to patient data. Electronic medical records make it possible to timely learn about a patient’s health and prescribe effective treatment. Linking the equipment of a medical institution into a single network will make it possible to receive examination data on doctors’ portable devices. In the United States of America, some clinics already operate on this principle. Doctors have tablets that receive information about the patient: what medications are prescribed, test results, etc.

The introduction of Internet technologies saves time for the patient and the doctor. There is no need to get to the clinic; you just need to turn on the computer and you can contact a medical institution. Some doctors in Russia are already practicing consultations via Skype. Video calls make it possible not only to conduct a survey, but also to do a general examination, which is often enough to get a general idea of ​​a person’s health. If you still need to see a doctor, you can also make an appointment online. Such a service can already be found today in some clinics, including in Moscow.

How will diseases be diagnosed in the future?

The development of medical technologies is moving towards allowing people to monitor their health on their own. Today in every home you can see tonometers. Diabetic patients use portable glucometers.

Pressure measuring devices, scales and other portable equipment are equipped with wireless transmitters that allow you to immediately transfer data to a computer and keep track of your health.

There are not many people in the world who can calmly endure a visit to the doctor to receive an injection. Well, it seems that the nightmare of the majority of adults and, especially, children of the planet is nearing an end. If you need an injection, you will no longer be “poked” with a needle. You will receive personal nano-robots. This is what the medicine of the future will be like.

A modern alternative to injections was proposed by two University of York students, Atif Saeed and Zachariah Hussain. Young people believe that injections have long become obsolete. Today, this method of administering drugs is unsafe. This inspired young researchers to propose a drug delivery option based on the use of nanorobots. The project was called "Nanject".

The basis of the new technology will be a nano-patch. Its surface will consist of nano-robots. The penetration of nanorobots into the human body will be through the skin, and their transportation in the body will be through the circulatory system. So nano-robots will be able to reach diseased tissues.

Atif Saeed and Zachariah Hussain plan to produce the patches in two variations

1. The first of them will be distinguished by the presence of a tiny proportion of drugs intended for transportation to the organs with which the patient is experiencing problems.
2. The purpose of the second will be determined by nano-robot liquidators capable of finding pathological cells in the body and heating them to a temperature leading to their death. After this, the temperature of the nano-robots will drop, and their removal from the body will be carried out naturally.

Researchers believe the nanopatch has great promise. According to them, in the near future, it will be with its help that people will receive all kinds of medicines, vitamins, vaccines and dietary supplements.

The need for dental treatment will be eliminated

British dental experts have begun developing technology that allows teeth to be grown directly in patients' mouths. This is the real medicine of the future. The technique involves two stages of restoring a lost tooth.

• Firstly, this includes the production of a tooth germ. For this, epithelial cells from the patient's gums are used, as well as stem cells from mouse embryos.
• Some time later, a special impulse comes from the epithelial cells, which stimulates the transformation of the embryo into some type of tooth.
• After the tooth is formed in a test tube, it is transferred to its further environment – ​​the patient’s oral cavity. Here the implantation phase is implemented, allowing the tooth to grow to the desired size.

Preliminary testing of the technique proves its success, so everyday use of such teeth growing is possible in the near future.

Teeth will become virus detectors

Experts from Princeton University have developed a chip that is placed on tooth enamel and signals changes in the body's condition. The chip contains gold, silk and graphene (an ultra-thin film of carbon) as a connecting material.

The device can operate even without a battery, since the radio signal is transmitted using an antenna coil. Although the chip seems to be a complex structure, it is attached to the tooth enamel using ordinary water.

To date, the invention is not yet suitable for its intended use. It is quite large in size and is also not protected from damage when brushing your teeth or eating. However, engineers stubbornly insist on the enormous potential of this device in the context of monitoring human health. According to the developers, this is the first step towards the medicine of the future.

The chip was tested on a cow's tooth with volunteers who agreed to breathe into the device. The device instantly transmitted new information to the monitors. Interestingly, in the future the chip will detect the presence of harmful bacteria and viruses not only by analyzing exhaled air, but also by analyzing the components of saliva.

US soldiers will have super vision

The American company Innovega appealed to the government of the United States of America with a request to consider all the advantages of its new development. This is a technology that can significantly improve the visual perception of environmental objects.

According to the head of the company, Steve Willey, its use in contact lenses will expand a person’s angular vision, as well as simultaneously focus the gaze on several objects. This modification of vision will allow you to outperform opponents during combat operations. The first customer of the batch of devices was the Pentagon.

It is reported that devices to improve the quality of vision will be used not only in the military-industrial complex. Steve Willey announces that lenses will soon be available for free sale, which will make it possible to distribute the technology among the general public.

However, ophthalmologists warn about the dangers of using the new development. Experts believe that these lenses have a negative effect on the eyes and visual acuity, because they reduce the contrast of images perceived by a person.

Synthetic blood can be tested on humans

The world's first license to study synthetic blood and test it on humans was obtained by a group of scientists working at the Scottish Center for Regenerative Medicine (Edinburgh). When producing synthetic blood, researchers used stem cells isolated from the body of adult donors as a basis.

This qualitatively distinguishes the obtained blood from previous variants, the production basis of which was embryos. If the tests of the new product are successful, it will be able to eliminate the problem of shortage of donors and blood, as well as save humanity from the problems of infection due to transfusion of low-quality blood.

In addition to testing synthetic blood, researchers are planning to test medications made using stem cells. There is already appropriate permission for this. These drugs are expected to be effective in treating stroke patients and patients who suffer from a number of diseases such as cancer, diabetes or Parkinson's disease. Such drugs will become the basis of the medicine of the future.

The movement of objects will be realized through the power of thought

A group of engineers from ATR, a company based in Kyoto, Japan, has developed a system that ensures that various actions can be performed using thoughts. The experiment was called Network Brain Machine Interface.

It has successfully implemented a number of tasks, including controlling hands solely with the power of thought or turning lights and televisions on and off. Thoughts even allowed me to change the direction of movement in a wheelchair!

Amazing results were made possible thanks to a helmet equipped with many sensors:

• The device records the most insignificant changes in blood flow and the slightest fluctuations in impulses emanating from the brain.
• This information is sent to the analytical center, which is located in a wheelchair.
• After analyzing the request, it is addressed to a specific device equipped with a reading sensor.

Today, the interval between the receipt of a request and the execution of a command is 6-12 seconds. However, the developers are determined to achieve a result of 1 second within 3 years. In addition, they plan to bring command recognition accuracy closer to 80%.

The company is expected to launch the device in the market by 2020. Experts believe that the device will significantly make life easier for people with disabilities and older people. For people with disabilities, the medicine of the future can restore a full life.

Guy with a bionic arm

The first and only British teenager with a bionic arm is named Patrick Kane.

When the boy was 9 months old, a meningococcal infection caused sepsis and the need to amputate his right leg and fingers on his right hand. At the age of 1, Patrick received prosthetics that served him for 15 years, and on his 16th birthday, his parents gave the teenager a super-technological gift in the form of a bionic hand from the Scottish company Touch Bionics.

The bionic hand is controlled using a smartphone. The package includes a special application for the iOS operating system, which allows the owner to control the movement of his limb. It includes training materials, familiarization with which allows you to use the device with the greatest efficiency.

There are sensors on the wrist of the prosthesis that record electrical impulses during muscle contraction. The user can select any of 24 grip types. The bionic hand is super sensitive, allowing you to pick up a piece of paper without creasing it as much as possible. At the same time, the artificial arm is capable of lifting loads of up to 90 kg.

Assessing the functionality of the invention, Patrick Kane does not hide his delight. He states that the bionic arm allows everyday operations to be performed with a much higher level of comfort than was possible with prosthetics. This is the real medicine of the future. The black model of the bionic limb, which the teenager preferred, costs between 38 and 122 thousand dollars, depending on its size.

The Japanese have learned to make skin transparent

Scientists from Japan have long tried to find a reagent that would make the skin of living organisms transparent. The purpose of these works was to facilitate the process of studying the work of internal organs. It seems that a mind-blowing discovery has finally taken place.

So far, the resulting “transparency serum” has been tested only on mouse embryos. Experts are now working to improve the safety level of the powerful chemical. This will allow testing of the reagent on animals and humans. The drug was codenamed Scale A2.

Blood vessels will be grown in the laboratory

A group of adventurous researchers working at Yale University and Duke University (Western Carolina) has opened a new page in the history of medicine. Scientists have created a network of laboratories whose specialization is the cultivation of blood vessels with their further use in various operations.

Until this point, the veins and vessels of the patient himself were used during the operation. This method had significant limitations, because such a donation could be impossible due to the patient’s lack of suitable vessels.

The basis of the new method was not cloning, which is discussed by humanity with increased interest.

• The essence of the technology is to isolate the muscle tissue of corpses, which is placed in a bioreactor.
• Here, tissue development takes place in specially designed containers that ensure its restoration.
• In addition, these reservoirs help increase the strength and elasticity of the tissue, which becomes the circulatory system by constricting a network of tiny cells.

The main component of the technology is called a bioreactor. The first use of this device dates back to 1999. Then, with its help, they tried to create cardiac tissue, which happened in conditions of weightlessness. Only a few knew about the existence of the device, because it was going to be used not only for growing human tissue, but also for cloning food.

New technology of the future should solve the problem of organ donation and queues for transplantation. The developers say that its implementation in modern technological progress will be carried out in the near future.

The project is currently at the development stage, but funding should arrive immediately after positive results are obtained. NASA will be an obligatory participant in the project, because organ growing factories must certainly be located in space in order to neutralize the effect of gravity on cell growth.

The elixir of youth has been discovered

Harvard researchers have come up with a way to rejuvenate old organs. This medical technology is expected to make people live longer. Its essence comes down to receiving one single injection.

The technique was developed based on observations of old age genes.

The general principle of aging is that the body loses the ability to form healthy cells that would divide and produce new cells. This is due to the fact that telomeres (the ends of the DNA strands) are becoming shorter and shorter. Reaching a critical length, they provoke aging of the body.

Ronald DeFino became the curator of the next experiment. Mice have been created in the laboratory that do not have the ability to produce telomeres. It turned out that when the condition of the cells deteriorated, the animals died immediately. The experiment was repeated with the addition of injecting enzymes into mice through a syringe. As a result, the aging process of rodents was reversed, and their cells began to rejuvenate.

The ability to carry out similar modifications in humans could lead to cures for premature aging. True, scientists still face many questions, including the moral side of DNA modification, the biological aspect of the technology’s influence on descendants, and the potential overpopulation of the planet with forever young people.

English doctor brings the dead back to life

Sam Parnia is called a doctor from God. This resuscitator manages to bring people back to life even after clinical death lasting three hours! The specialist found his first job in England, and now works in the USA. At Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York, Sam was able to raise the clinical death survival rate from 16% to 30%. According to the expert, this is not the limit.

Sam Parnia convinces others that he is not a magician, and the results of his work are just a tribute to science and common sense. He is deeply convinced that modern medicine continues to exploit outdated methods and technologies. The resuscitator invented his own technology for resurrecting people, which he called the “Lazarus effect.” It saves the lives of at least 40 thousand patients a year.

The doctor does not hide the nuances of his method from other medical specialists or ordinary people. This technology became the subject of a narrative in his own book. However, other specialists are in no hurry to use the acquired knowledge. Of course, because the method requires considerable effort and a lot of time for each patient.

• The basis of the “Lazarus effect” is information about the apoptosis stopping system, which determines programmed cell death.
• After a person reaches clinical death, he is immediately cooled.
• His blood is passed through a special blood purification device - ECMO. Thus, the internal environment of the body is cleared of carbon dioxide and saturated with oxygen.

Using the method, Sam Parnia managed to save football player Fabrice Mumamba, who remained in a state of clinical death for several hours, and a girl from Japan, whose state of apparent death lasted 3 hours.

22.12.2015

Human health is a knowledge-intensive industry that is developing at incredible speed. How will new technologies change it and who will be in demand in the labor market over the next 20 years? Ucheba.ru diagnoses the future of medicine.

Over the past 100 years, the science of saving human lives has made huge strides forward, penetrating the secrets of the human body and psyche. She learned to fight infectious diseases, developed plastic surgery, mastered new means of surgical intervention, and kept pace with the latest achievements in miniaturization. We no longer get smallpox, we have forgotten what the plague is, we know how to transplant a heart. All this led to the fact that during the 20th century, the average life expectancy on the planet increased from 35 to 65 years.

Medicine has come very far in solving a variety of problems related to human health, but, alas, it has not solved them all. Today it faces challenges no smaller than a century ago. Cancer has not yet been conquered, previously unknown viruses arise with enviable regularity, antibiotics lose their potency, new habits and lifestyles bring new diseases. At the same time, we are in the midst of a genetic revolution, intensively studying the structure of the brain, hoping for big data and robots, and waiting for breakthroughs in the fight against aging. Anyone who plans to connect their life with medicine today should take a closer look at the cutting edge of its development and understand how it may change by 2035.

The main supplier of new technologies and professions in all areas of human labor today is information technology. Doctors are no exception. Medical institutions are switching from analogue to digital accounting and are mastering computer analysis and forecasting systems. Tectonic shifts in the healthcare system in the foreseeable future are associated with increasing computing power and work with big data. In 2015, Google announced the launch of the first quantum computer, D-Wave. One can only guess what it will be like in 20 years, but it is absolutely certain - very, very fast. Such speeds and volumes will require specialists with advanced IT knowledge who are able to manage and support huge amounts of data - in the future, IT doctors and analysts will be in demand in medicine no less than nurses or dentists.

Automation systems and robotic systems go hand in hand with supercomputers. Da Vinci robotic surgeons, performing operations of varying complexity, mainly hysterectomies and prostatectomies, are already present in more than 2,000 medical institutions, 25 of which are in Russia. These cars are not yet fully autonomous, and are unlikely to become so soon. They need qualified engineers and operators with programming skills - professions that will definitely be needed in 20 years. MIT surgeon and inventor Katerina Mohr talks in her TED talk about how robots could give doctors real superpowers—and their use in medicine hasn't even begun yet.

Network technologies and computerization of the industry are bringing personalized medical services to the forefront. The development of tricorders, devices capable of making diagnoses autonomously from a doctor, mobile applications and wearable sensor gadgets will only add fuel to the fire. Renowned geneticist and digital medicine researcher Eric Topol calls this process “patient emancipation” and believes that information and rapid examination will soon not only be available to everyone without visiting a doctor’s office, but will also make it possible to predict and prevent most serious diseases on the fly.

Healthcare will go beyond the threshold of clinics and hospitals, relieving them of minor procedures and unnecessary bureaucracy. This will create a huge market for personalized therapy. Online personal doctors still exist today, but over the coming decades they will dominate the professional environment. No person interested in a healthy lifestyle will refuse instant access to expert opinion, especially if there is a convenient platform for this, and diagnostic tools are at hand. The work of a doctor will be similar to the work of a personal trainer and psychoanalyst. To build a successful career in such a world, you will need qualifications that are taught today not in medical, but in marketing institutes - customer focus and the ability to work with people.

The process of personalizing medicine will be picked up by breakthroughs in the field of genetics. At the beginning of the 21st century, the international Human Genome project to decipher DNA was completed. The research cost $3 billion, and within 15 years the cost of personal genome sequencing had dropped below $1,000. In 20 years, this procedure will be carried out at the moment of birth, and everyone will know the features of their genome, like their blood type. Genetic counselors will appear on the labor market. They will help interpret the results, analyze the general state of health and refer the patient to the right specialist.

How CRISPR/Cas9 works

Even more interesting is how new technologies in the field of genetic research will directly affect human health. For example, the CRISPR/Cas9 system, which has caused a lot of noise, is a method for assembling DNA, which already today makes it possible to manipulate genes directly. At the moment, the technology is helping in the fight against serious diseases and opens up fantastic prospects in the field of restructuring the DNA of embryos. And although a complete understanding of the influence of the mechanisms of the human genome on health is still far away - additional research is required - genetics is radically changing the face of medicine. “This is no longer science fiction,” is how Dr. George Daly of Harvard Medical School characterizes the changes taking place. Within 20 years, CRISPR/Cas9 will become even more commonplace, requiring qualified specialists.

Genetic manipulation and some other new technologies, such as face transplants, neurobiology and the production of artificial organs, will require society to seek new norms and rules for regulating the medical industry. This will require experts with a radically new knowledge base - medical, philosophical, social and political. Today this area is known as “bioethics” and has already appeared in the programs of leading universities. The demand for specialists who provide an ethical framework for working with new technologies will grow with each new scientific breakthrough. Cloning, transplantation, DNA modeling, euthanasia and other sensitive issues will be dealt with under the close supervision of bioethicists.

In addition to genetics, science will provide the medical industry with a number of specialists in the field of bioimaging, targeted therapy, neurobiology, optogenetics, regenerative medicine and nanotechnology. These scientific areas today arouse the greatest interest not only among experts, but also among the business community. Entrepreneur and member of the INVITRO strategic committee Sergei Shupletsov notes that “in the next 15 years, many mechanical technologies will be replaced by biotechnologies. First of all, this will affect health. For example, drugs will be invented that cannot be fully called medicinal. They will control and stimulate the body’s natural defenses.”

3D bioprinting technologies are especially well represented in Russia. Thus, Russian specialists were among the first to print an organ construct of the mouse thyroid gland using the Russian Fabion bioprinter. Bioprinting is the process of recreating a copy of an organ using living cells from the body. The “magic” happens in a special multifunctional device, the scale of which will soon grow to meet human needs. Industry leaders in Russia - the first domestic private laboratory working in the field of three-dimensional organ bioprinting, 3D Bioprinting Solutions. Successful experiences today indicate that in 20 years there will be no shortage of work in this field.

To expand our understanding of the processes that result in cell damage and obtain new tools to counteract serious diseases, the development of new laboratory observation techniques, such as bioimaging, is important. Russian specialists have also succeeded in this area. Representatives of the Institute of Applied Physics RAS make some of the highest quality installations for fluorescent bioimaging, which play a big role in oncological research and pharmacology. Other current developments in the field of biotechnology concern nanochips, stem cells and neural interfaces. Specialists in these fields are worth their weight in gold today and will not lose their status until 2035.

The development of modern medicine and the general increase in living standards have led to the fact that the demographic structure of the population has changed greatly. There are more and more older people in developed and developing countries. According to Rosstat, by 2030, a third of the Russian population will be of retirement age. This is probably not the limit, given the development of a completely new field of knowledge - life science, which aims to increase life expectancy or completely defeat aging. A group of philanthropists led by Yuri Milner and Mark Zuckerberg annually awards the Breakthrough Prize and $3 million to the best researchers in this area. The idea that a person can, on average, live more than 100 years is finding more and more adherents among serious scientists.

Changing demographics will have a significant impact on the healthcare of the future. Firstly, it will lead to the emergence of a new type of medical professional - specialists in dignified aging, whose abilities and knowledge will be in great demand in a society dominated by people over 60 years of age. Secondly, the science of life extension could seriously change the structure of the industry, becoming a buffer for all the new technologies that the aging population will need to maintain a high quality of life: from plastic surgery to bioprinting new organs to replace worn-out ones. The demand for quality medical services will grow proportionately.

Medicine is facing big, but quite predictable changes. The next 20 years will be the era of personalization, computerization and biotechnology of the industry. This does not mean that the industry will experience a serious crisis. Quite the opposite. New technologies are likely to usher in a golden era of healthcare for humanity. More and more diseases are treatable. Health costs are rising every year. Innovations are expanding the market for medical services, adding a scattering of new jobs, and automation processes do not yet threaten even the most low-skilled personnel. In the future, medicine will remain at its best - it will be an interesting, noble and profitable profession, and most importantly - for every taste.

Doctors of the future

Entry points into the medicine of the future in Russia

Russian medical education today lasts from six to 18 years. Immediately after the six-year university, graduates can only become therapists or pediatricians. Postgraduate education to obtain a specialty will take another two to five years. Those who want to become a doctor of science study the longest: in this case, the duration of education will be comparable to the life expectancy of a person who has reached adulthood.

Time passes, and scientists do not sit idly by, but do everything to ensure that medicine constantly develops, progresses and receives more opportunities to work with patients. Their goal is to reach a level where all diseases can be defeated, and, even better, their occurrence can be prevented altogether. How close they came to this, and what the medicine of the future will be like, we will tell you in this article.

Nanobots: the hope of all humanity

Who among us does not know about nanotechnology? In the world of medicine and science, they are on everyone’s lips, because this is our future and the very magical way to solve many problems related to human health.

What makes them special? Nanoparticles have unique properties that open up many new possibilities for scientists.

Science fiction books or films often show technologies that allow one to quickly resuscitate a person, restore his damaged limbs, and so on. Just ten years ago, all this seemed just fiction, a figment of someone’s imagination. But today these are the realities of the future, because scientists predict that as soon as nanostructures become more widespread, they will begin to create miniature robots that can quickly restore the human body, roughly speaking, carry out its overhaul.

Of course, such a statement looks very doubtful, but in fact it is quite real. The interaction between a sick person and nanotechnology will look like this. The patient drinks a mixture containing nanobots, that is, miniature robots, or it is injected intravenously, and they are absorbed into the bloodstream. During their move, they will be able to repair all internal damage.

With the help of nanoparticles, it will also be possible to correct DNA, which will not only correct it, but also prevent the occurrence of mutations that lead to the formation of various kinds of diseases.

Cyborgs – fantasy or reality?

Another favorite theme of science fiction is cyborg people, that is, those who have mechanized body parts. But can such opportunities be considered something fantastic today? It’s unlikely, because already in 2011 an operation was performed in America, during which the patient’s heart was completely removed, and instead two rotors were installed, responsible for pumping blood.

Also, quite a long time ago, doctors learned to administer artificial stimulants, which can also be considered a kind of cybernitization of a person. The problem with such installations was that they had to be changed quite often. However, today Israeli scientists have taken into account their shortcomings and have created more advanced versions of stimulants and other similar devices that feed on the biocurrents of the human body. This means that the need for such frequent replacement has also disappeared.

Who knows, perhaps soon the bright minds of humanity will learn to create even more convenient and stable mechanized devices that can replace artificially grown organs.

Artificial organs

It's no secret that problems with the level of ecology, a sharp increase in population on the planet, and many other factors have stimulated an increase in the number of diseases. Unfortunately, they spare no one and often lead to prolonged suffering and death. One can only sympathize with people who are on dialysis and need an organ transplant, because quite often their expectations are not met.

It is also worth noting that organ transplantation is a very complex and, most importantly, expensive process. But stem cells will help solve this problem once and for all. For a long time, scientists have been working to study their characteristics and the possibility of growing new organs from individual tissues. To date, many successful studies have been carried out in laboratories, which confirm that very soon every person will be able to receive the desired organ with the help of stem cells and even be cured of such terrible diseases as cerebral palsy.

Diagnostics of the future - what will it be like?

Well, what kind of future in medicine is possible without the development of early diagnosis? In fact, most incurable or difficult-to-treat diseases arise precisely because patients seek professional medical help too late or because of poor-quality equipment.

New technologies will be as simple as possible, easy to use, and most importantly – very accurate. Thanks to them, doctors will be able to determine the occurrence of all diseases at very early stages, which means that the treatment process will also be simplified, and will be less painful and expensive.

Science has already made significant steps in this direction; recall at least all kinds of devices that allow you to monitor a person’s blood pressure, blood sugar levels, etc.

In the future, it is planned to create small sensors that can be implanted into a person’s skin or sewn into his clothing. With the help of such biosensory mechanisms, everyone will be able to monitor the general condition of their body, including such indicators as heart rate, blood pressure, blood sugar levels, hormone levels and many other equally important ones.

Technologies are developing at an ever-increasing speed. And the healthcare industry is no exception. New technologies and methodologies are being developed daily, making treatment increasingly painless and minimizing side effects to a minimum. Here we have decided to introduce you to ten medical technologies that promise to revolutionize healthcare.

1. Gel that stops bleeding

Two scientists, Joe Landolina and Isaac Miller, invented a gel they called Veti-gel. Why is this substance interesting?

There is such a thing as the extracellular matrix. This is a substance that helps the cells of our body grow. The new gel mimics this substance and can instantly stop bleeding and then begin the blood clotting process. Veti-gel has already been tested on the carotid artery of a rat and on a cut live liver. This gel can save many lives, especially in war zones, by preventing blood loss, which very often causes death.

2. Magnetic levitation

A new method of growing artificial lung tissue is called magnetic levitation. A term you'd more likely expect to see in a book or movie. A team of developers led by Glauco Souza began their research in 2010 and were able to use nano-magnets to grow artificial tissue that most closely matches natural tissue. The process is carried out in much the same way as tissue grows in a Petri dish, only in the form of a three-dimensional form consisting of a complex cellular multilayer structure. This growth replicated the process that occurs inside the human body. New technology promises to make the creation and transplantation of artificial tissue one of the main methods of treatment.

3. Artificial prosthesis at the cellular level

Currently, a lot of research is being conducted aimed at synthesizing artificial human organs and tissues that can be used for transplantation. Today, medical science is trying to create the possibility of using spare parts for the human body. For example, when an organ fails, you can simply replace it with another that will perform its functions perfectly. And this idea even descended to the cellular level. A special gel has been developed that copies certain cells and their functioning. It forms as a clump about four times as wide as the DNA double helix. The gel is able to take the place of the cellular skeleton (cytoskeleton) and can replace any cells that have been damaged or lost in the affected area. The use of this substance allows for long-term treatment by blocking the access of bacteria to the wound.

4. Brain cells from urine

This, of course, sounds terrible, but in the future scientists will be able to turn your urine into your own brain cells in order to treat the latter. The good news is that the source of these cells is easily accessible to you and you can definitely use your own urine instead of someone else's.

Until now, scientists have used embryonic cells for this, but this process has had the side effect of forming a tumor. They have now tested the new procedure and found that the results at this stage are very good. Implantation had already been carried out, in which the cells obtained in this way were transformed into neurons without any mutations.

5. Electric underwear

Patients who are forced to stay in bed for weeks or months often experience bedsores. They are most often formed due to compression of the skin and lack of normal blood circulation. Many people treat these problems with disdain, but you may be interested to know that in America alone, about 60 thousand people die every year from the consequences of bedsores. Canadian researcher Shean Dukelow came up with a solution to the problem by developing electric underwear. These “electric briefs” emit a small electrical shock every ten minutes, which is enough to activate your muscles and increase circulation. An effect similar to the result obtained with a short walk is achieved. This absurd invention, it seemed, could save many lives!

6. Vaccine in pollen

Why are most vaccines given by injection rather than orally? The fact is that your digestive system and stomach acid will simply dissolve the vaccine and the final result will be completely useless. But pollen is a well-known allergen that can very effectively resist acid in the human stomach. Texas Tech University is currently conducting a study in which they are trying to combine the properties of both and develop a vaccine that can be distributed in pill form for use by American soldiers serving in various countries, often under adverse epidemiological conditions. Researchers hope to remove the allergen from the pollen and replace it with a vaccine that is protected by the pollen shell. The results already achieved allow us to hope that in the near future vaccination will be much easier to use.

7. Printed dice

New technology and a ProMetal 3D printer are already allowing scientists at Washington State University to “print” a hybrid material that has the same properties as real human bones. This hybrid model can be placed in a person's body where the bones are damaged and can be used as a scaffold until the bones recover and return to a healthy state. The new material has already been tested on rabbits and the experiment was very successful. Moreover, the use of this material simultaneously with stem cells allowed the bones to recover much faster than under normal conditions. The material itself is a combination of zinc, silicon and calcium phosphate. Moreover, the researchers propose to use this technology not only to restore bones, but also propose to “print” entire organs in case of serious damage.

8. Repair brain damage

Did you know that your tongue is connected to your nervous system through thousands of nerve clusters, some of which are directly connected to your brain? It was from this knowledge that the idea in question was born. What if you could stimulate the nerve area in your tongue and thus force your brain to "repair" damaged nerves? Strange as it may seem, this is already possible. A fairly large number of patients have already undergone treatment with a neuromodulating stimulator (PoNS), and in just a week, doctors have noted a significant improvement in the restoration of brain function.

New technology avoids the long-term rehabilitation process and speeds up recovery in case of brain damage. Researchers are currently working on applying this method to the treatment of other brain diseases, such as alcoholism, Parkinson's disease, etc.

9. Equipment that receives power from a person

Pacemakers are relatively simple and not very expensive devices that are used to regulate the functioning of the human heart. Unfortunately, after about seven years, the device's power supply runs out and must be replaced through surgery, which can cause additional problems, especially in older adults. Dr. Amin Karami has found a solution to this problem. He developed a device that could generate electricity from the beating of the heart and be used to power a pacemaker. He is now looking to test his device, which, if successful, could revolutionize the field of wearable and in-body medical devices.

By the way, these are not the only experiments of this kind. Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have conducted the first tests on rats of a self-powered artificial pacemaker that is powered by a flexible piezoelectric nanogenerator. The new device directly stimulates the rat's living heart using electricity generated by direct conversion from the small movements of the rat's body.

10. Robots in blood vessels

Scientists from Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, USA) have developed a computer chip that can function in a patient's blood for a long time. This is a so-called microfluidic chip, covered with long strands of DNA that absorb malignant cancer cells. The action of this chip in the blood resembles the movement and nutrition of a jellyfish in the ocean, only here the food is cancer cells. Moreover, cancer cells can be extracted from the chip later if they need to be studied for diagnosis.

The developers say this capture-and-release mechanism could be used for both diagnostic purposes and therapeutic treatment in the fight against cancer. It is planned to test this technology on humans in the near future.