Medical Marvels
MAKING STRIDES IN MEDICINE WITH FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY
WHEN PRESIDENT DWIGHT EISENHOWER suffered a heart attack in 1955 (that’s just 61 years ago), his physician administered morphine and other drugs, none of which were targeted at helping his heart or rectifying his blood pressure and irregular pulse. His general surgeon didn’t do better by checking him into a hospital and confining him to “bed, chair, rest and limited physical activity” for weeks. As absurd as it sounds now, this was all the help you could get if you had a heart attack back then.
It wasn’t all that long ago too that surgery was applied only as a final and desperate resort. Before the advent of safe and effective anaesthetics, patients had to endure surgical procedures while lucid, even when undergoing amputations and tooth extractions. When doctors had the idea to induce a state of analgesia in patients, it was by way of drugs or alcohol. Chinese and Indian physicians used marijuana and hashish, while others tried hypnotism. What a relief that we’ve gone past all that now.
It’s good to know the field of medicine continues to move forward to meet new challenges. Some of the most revolutionary areas of development in recent years are 3D printing, reprogrammed gut bacteria and virtual reality. And who knows, it may not be too long before medical science can take us beyond the illusion of perfect health.
3D PRINTING
The initial idea was so exciting that many industries could not ignore its possibilities. But while some have begun to lose interest, the medical field continues to explore its applications.
3D printing has been used to produce inexpensive and customisable prosthetics. In Uganda, the e-Nable Community used its 3D printers to build a prosthetic arm for a young boy from a rural village who lost his own in an animal attack. Last year, South Korean doctors utilised a 3D-printed pelvic implantation for a teenage girl suffering from bone cancer. The medical team reported that the operation took three hours less than it normally would because the prosthetic implant was so precisely printed that it enabled an easier fit.
Another application that has seen development in the medical industry is the 3D-printing of drugs. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania-based Aprecia Pharmaceuticals made the news for producing the first US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved 3D-printed drug, Spritam (chemical name: Levetiracetam). The drug used to treat epilepsy was created by “stitching” layers of powdered medication between liquid materials, forming a porous pill that dissolves rapidly on contact with water.
What advantage does 3D printing offer over regular manufacturing methods? The answer is customisability. In time to come, drugs will be 3D-printed to cater to specific individuals. Just by altering the surface area of a specific drug, healthcare providers will be able to control the strength of a dose and the time over which it is released. This significant breakthrough in personalised medicine also presents the potential for patients to 3D print their own medication in the future.
Perhaps the most intriguing application of 3D printing in the medical industry has to do with a specific process commonly referred to as “bioprinting”. Before we continue, it is worth mentioning that bioprinting is not about producing completely functioning and transplantable organs. Contrary to popular belief, that is not possible. Yet. However, scientists have been successful at printing organ tissue. This is definitely a step in the right direction.
Bioprinting is essentially a process of fusing layers and layers of bioink, which are spheroids made from human cells, to form organ tissue. Fan Mingwei, director of Bio3D Technologies (a company that develops
biological 3D printers in Singapore), explains that one important aspect of this application is pharmaceutical testing. Being able to test the effect of a drug on printed tissue reduces our reliance on animal testing, making it a more ethical option. It is more accurate too, considering that the printed tissue is made from human cells.
Fan affords that another area bioprinted tissue can be utilised is cancer research. Imagine being able to test the effects of different treatments on a cancer cell obtained from an individual before actually administering the most effective one. Hence, while we are still a long way away from bioprinted organs, this application of 3D printing is already revolutionising the medical industry.
REPROGRAMMING GUT BACTERIA
Set a thief to catch a thief? Or one kind of bacteria to deal with another. Scientists have discovered a way to reprogram bacteria in the gut as “living therapeutics”. In recent years bacteria, collectively known as microbiota, have been recognised to have a major influence on health. Using research done by its co-founders, professors Tim Lu and Jim
Collins, Synlogic (an MIT spin-out) has leveraged on that connection to combat human disease. They have created synthetic biotics that can be taken regularly to boost the microbiota with new metabolic capabilities or aid with lost functionality in organs.
These synthetic biotics are based off probiotics, which are strains of “good” bacteria. It sounds familiar because cultured milk drinks like Yakult also use them. “We’re trying to show that probiotics can be engineered to treat human diseases. So we take those probiotics and modify them so that we can amplify their beneficial effects,” Lu explained.
So what kind of diseases can these synthetic biotics fight? According to the researchers, it will aid those with inflammatory digestive disorders like Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. They add that it is potentially more accurate and safer than traditional treatments because it can be programmed to identify inflammation in the gut and produce antiinflammatory molecules on the spot, in addition to creating molecules to boost immune system function.
Currently, Synlogic’s synthetic biotic treatments cater to rather rare genetic disorders, but in time it will be able to combat a range of ailments with metabolic components including cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases and central nervous system disorders. According to them, probiotic treatments are not used for serious disorders now because of its lack of efficacy. However, Synlogic is confident that its drugs, which will go into clinical trials within the year, will achieve clinically validated levels of efficacy.
SURGERY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD
With virtual reality (VR) becoming increasingly accessible, it is no surprise that medical professionals are coming onboard, albeit gradually. VR refers to a three-dimensional computer-generated environment or image that a person can interact with through the use of electronic equipment. Some of the more popular commercial VR headsets include the Oculus Rift and Sony PlayStation VR. The VR equipment used in medicine, while similar in theory, is meant for more serious business.
Dr Neil Martin, chairman of neurosurgery at UCLA, is working with a company called Surgical Theatre to produce headsets that will allow surgeons to “journey inside their patients’ brains”. Doctors will be able to take 360-degree look at a malignant tumor in a patient’s brain, spotting potential complications before stepping into the operating theatre.
WITH VR, SURGEONS WILL BE ABLE TO TAKE AN INTERACTIVE 360-DEGREE LOOK AT PATIENTS’ BRAINS BEFORE SURGERY
A recent milestone proved that VR can also be utilised during a procedure. A few weeks ago the technologically-savvy Dr Shafi Ahmed performed the world’s first operation to be streamed live in 360-degree video. While it was a routine procedure, it certainly was an exciting one. The immersive experience proved exceptional for the education of trainee surgeons because they managed to see the inner workings of an operating theatre from the perspectives of various surgical team members without actually being there.
We can laugh about how far we have come since hacking off limbs without anaesthetics. But it it is likely that people from 2116 will also look back in amusement at how primitive our “cutting-edge” technology is. Perhaps one day there will be a drug for everything and even surgery will be a thing of the past. Who knows? We look forward to that day.