The year 2024 has proven itself to be a year filled with groundbreaking technological advancements, with the outburst of technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, biotech, and advanced robotics. This article will cover these innovations’ extensive impacts on healthcare and positive future outlooks in these technologies.
- mRNA and Gene Editing Breakthroughs
With the major success that mRNA vaccines saw against COVID-19, further contributions have been made, with new treatments being made for both malaria and HIV, two of the largest communicable diseases. Additionally, researchers have also made extensive contributions in gene editing techniques, as shown in CRISPR-Cas9, which showed promising results in the treatment of genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. Furthermore, this technology is being used to further aid cancer research, being at the front line in the race to find the cure.
- Robotics in Surgery
Surgical robots have seen extensive improvements in 2024 through AI-aided technology, which has the capability of performing surgeries with much greater precision and accuracy than human counterparts. As of now, the robots are used to aid humans, being controlled by humans, rather with greater accuracy and safety precautions with AI, which will hopefully reduce the risk of surgeries and any blood loss or tradeoffs that need to be made. In the future, surgeries may be made fully autonomous through robots, possibly reducing the cost of these procedures, ease, and time, but their ethics raise a different argument.
- 3D Printing in Medicine
The use of 3D printing has expanded greatly in 2024, with applications in the printing of custom prosthetic limbs, implants, and even bioprintable organs. Through these parts being printed, both patients who lost them during an accident and patients who never had them will benefit. In addition to this, parts that wouldn’t be possible are now being made, helping a wider range of patients while being a cheaper alternative at the same time. While this technology may be at a higher price as of now, this is due to it being very new with limited factories and unoptimized printers, so in the future, it will be a much cheaper alternative.
- Drone Delivery of Medical Supplies
Many areas around the globe are remote, being difficult to traverse and expensive to make deliveries for adequate medical supplies. To solve this issue, drones are now being put to work. Companies such as ZipLine aim to have zero-emission drones deliver vaccines, medications, and other health products to these hard-to-reach communities with both speed and affordability. Emergency aid after disasters will give access to these supplies quickly and efficiently, potentially saving millions of lives.
Through these innovations, the scene of global health has been altered as a whole, promoting a future filled with efficiency, affordability, and the creation of new possibilities.
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