Healing touch
Breakthroughs in stem cell research, cancer drugs, gene therapy; first face transplant; antidote to ageing
The noughties were a period of seismic shift in medicine. Revolutionary breakthroughs took place in stem cell research, genomics, human cloning, cancer cure and wonder drugs. In 2003, scientists derived sperms and eggs from stem cells, promising a renewable source of human eggs and sperm for research, but also giving rise to ethical questions. Four years later, scientists in Japan created stem cells from skin cells — technically known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, which look and act like embryonic stem cells. This potentially removed the need for human embryo use in stem cell research, thus putting at rest ethical concerns. In 2005, a face transplant was carried out on a French woman, the first of half-a-dozen carried out since. This year the compound rapamycin was found to extend the lifespan of mice — a remarkable discovery which may be a step towards immortality. Also this year, European and US researchers made progress in treating a fatal brain disease, inherited blindness, and a severe immune disorder through gene therapy. Cancer research yielded path-breaking methods to fight the disease, including the appearance in 2001 of a new breed of smart-bomb drugs targeted at precise biochemical defects. In 2003, encouraging results were witnessed in antiangiogenic therapy — starving tumours of nutrients by preventing blood vessel growth. Thanks to the completion of the human genome, scientists, in 2008, also started looking into the genetic mistakes that can cause cancer.