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This year brought the the approval of medicines that could be paradigm - shifting : Januarybrought a fresh drug for Alzheimer’sthat ’s only the second of its variety , May understand thefirst - ever gene therapyfor a rarified , debilitating skin - blister disorder , and as of June , psychedelics can now be used aspsychiatric treatment in Australia . ( With trial ongoing in the U.S. , we could be close behind on that last one . )
But arguably , the most plastic evolution we witnessed in medicine this year was the approval of theworld ’s first therapy built upon the gene - editing putz CRISPR .
A newly approved drug targets sticky plaques of protein in the brain to treat Alzheimer’s.
It ’s been only 11 years since CRISPR was launch to fame as a gene - redaction system , thanks to a seminal 2012 paper . It ’s remarkable that scientists have been capable to chop-chop co - opt the microbic defence system as useful medical specialty . And from its advent , CRISPR was predicted to be a potential game - auto-changer for conditions like reap hook - cadre disease — meaning consideration that have a discrete , well - fix genetic lawsuit — and it ’s encouraging to see that prediction now fall true .
And there will be more CRISPR news come in in 2024 , as extra therapies foreverything from HIVto high cholesterolmove through trials . I recall we ’ll someday await back on the approval of the first CRISPR therapy in price of " before and after " — it may well mark the start of a new era in medicine , one that comes with honourable predicament we have n’t fully tackled yet .
REPROGRAMMING INFLAMMATION : Our health reporter Emily Cooke wrote about one of our bodies ' superheros that can sometimes become a villain : redness . Scientists are wreak to sovereignty in chronic inflammation in the eubstance — rather than switching it all the means off , which would hopple the resistant system , they ’re build up strategy to simply turn down the telephone dial . Is there a way to deform harmful , ongoing inflammation back into a helpful , transient defense strategy ?
Chronic inflammation is like a raging fire in the body. Thankfully, scientists are developing new therapies to treat it.
RETIRING ANTIBIOTICS : I wrote aboutup - and - coming medicines that could supplant antibiotics , which are growing less efficacious by the year . The cattle farm of antibiotic opposition represent a major threat to humanity , seduce vulgar infections hard to cure . We need to get hold drugs that are invulnerable to drug resistance , so scientists are looking to tiny , protein sabre ; exactly engineered molecules ; bacteria - killing viruses ; and CRISPR .
HONORABLE MENTIONS : The planetary effort to terminate the AIDS epidemic by 2030 isstill go warm — but face tall hurdling . In the meantime , we ’ve find out a few people join the curt list of individualswho have potentiallybeen bring around of HIV . In a big sack , the FDAretired its rule that drug must be testedin animals to be approved . likely alternatives to beast testing , such as organoids , havegrown more sophisticatedand some haveeven been tackle in computer organization . And finally , 2023 brought usthe first draft of the human " pangenome"andmost elaborate mathematical function of the human brainever conceived — so even as drug ontogenesis advances at a speedy pace , we ’re still instruct about the fundamentals of what makes us human .
As always , thanks for reading material , and we ’ll see you in 2024 !
Traditional antibiotics drive bacteria toward drug resistance, so scientists are looking to viruses, CRISPR, designer molecules and protein swords for better treatments.
