Massive leap for medicine
A PARAPLEGIC walked using his own legs, a tiny human kidney and brain were grown in a Petri dish and a 3D printer made a nose for a little girl born without one, as medical science delivered some amazing new treatment possibilities in 2015.
In a year where scientists unravelled more and more of the gene mutations responsible for our diseases, we began to enter the age of personalised medicine where treatments and cures are designed specifically for individuals.
Here we review some of the most exciting medical breakthroughs in 2015: MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
A wheelchair-bound 26year-old paraplegic in the United States of America walked 3.5m using his own legs after being fitted with an electrode cap that picked up his brain waves, beamed them to a computer which sent them on to a nerve controller strapped to his belt that triggered his muscles to move his leg.
At Manchester Royal Eye Hospital in the UK 80-year- old Ray Flynn was given a bionic eye to overcome blindness bought on by macular degeneration. Video images captured by a camera positioned on his glasses sent the images on to a retinal implant, thereby allowing him to improve his vision. STEM CELLS
Minoru Takasato from the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne grew a tiny kidney organoid from skin stem cells in a Petri dish. The organoid can be used to test potential medicines for kidney disease and further research could one day lead to a transplantable kidney, reducing the need for organ donation.
In the US, researchers at Ohio State University grew an almost fully formed human brain in a laboratory.
The brain was the size of that found in a five-week-old human foetus and contained 99 per cent of the cells found in a human brain. PRINTABLE CURES
In the UK Tessa Evans, who was born without a nose, was having one built for her by a computer and a 3D printer.
In Australia, Amanda Gorvin received a custom built vertebrae implant built by a 3D computer to cure her back pain.
At Wollongong University, scientists are working on making human flesh using a 3D printer and human stem cells infused into liquid that can be passed through a printer.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved the world’s first printed pill, an epilepsy medicine that dissolves within 10 seconds of coming into contact with liquid. CANCER
University of Pennsylvania developed a single shot cure for blood cancer called CTL019 that put a multiple myeloma patient in remission.
Another new treatment for leukaemia extracts T cells (part of the immune system) from a patient, modifies them to recognise leukaemia and uses a defused HIV virus to get them to eat the cancer, targeting an antigen called CD19.
In Australia Professor Phillip Hogg has developed a molecule that kills cancer cells while leaving healthy cells alone.