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Modern medicine is pretty incredible.
But even in a world where open-heart surgery
and brain-scanning headsets
sound almost mundane, some medical advances
do truly seem
like science fiction.
So here are five recent developments that
sound like they’re
straight out of the future, but are already
around today.
Robots and surgeons go way back—in fact,
robots have been
in operating rooms since the late 1980s, helping
out
with all types of routine procedures.
But in February 2020, surgeons in the Netherlands
kicked things up a notch.
They used a very precise robotic arm with
teeny tiny tools
on the end to operate on blood vessels just
a few times
the size of a human hair.
It was the first human trial of robot-assisted
supermicrosurgery,
which is surgery on vessels smaller than eight-tenths
of a millimeter.
Surgeries at these scales are really tricky
for humans,
because our hands do shake—maybe just a
little bit,
but at these scales, every millimeter counts.
So only highly-trained surgeons are capable
of doing these procedures.
One of these very precise surgeries, called
a lymphatico-venous anastomosis, or an LVA,
is a treatment
for breast cancer patients whose lymph isn’t
draining properly.
Lymph is a fluid that transports white blood
cells
and other nutrients around the body—and
when it doesn’t
drain properly, it can cause swelling and
pain.
But with surgery, tiny lymph vessels can be
connected
to blood vessels to give the lymph another
way out.
This surgery is at the very limit of human
capabilities,
but the team of surgeons and roboticists in
the Netherland thought
they might just be able to make the procedure
easier and safer.
They devised a robot called MUSA, which mimics
a surgeon.
It has two arms that go over the patient,
with tiny surgical tools
on the ends instead of hands.
To manipulate the robot, a surgeon looks at
the patient
through a microscope and moves a set of controllers
as if they were operating directly on a person.
But it’s the robot’s tiny tools that are
actually
performing the surgery.
The robot mimics the surgeon’s movements
exactly,
except it filters out tremors.
It also scales those movements down, since
the surgeon is looking
at the patient through a microscope and making
bigger motions.
Out of 20 surgeries, MUSA assisted in eight,
and all of them
were a success.
Unlike a human, the robot didn’t twitch
or get tired,
and it could hold an awkward position forever
if it had to.
This success is really exciting, because a
robot like MUSA
could make this type of complex surgery possible
for more surgeons—which means more people
could get
the treatment they need.
The reason a lot of people who are paralyzed
can’t move their limbs
is because the nerves that should be taking
signals from the brain
to the rest of the body aren't working the
way they should.
And for many people with this kind of nerve
damage,
the condition is permanent.
But in a case study published in 2019 in the
journal
The Lancet Neurology, a team of researchers
in France found
a creative way for a man who was paralyzed
below the neck
to control his limbs again.
Their idea was to bypass the nerves completely—by
recording messages
straight from the brain and sending them to
a machine
that could carry out its orders.
The solution combined incredible advances
in both
brain scanning and robotics.
First, the team inserted two small implants
into the patient’s brain
to measure activity in the areas that control
movement.
The implants were hooked up wirelessly to
a computer system,
which decoded the brain signals and translated
them
into instructions for a virtual avatar or
a full-body exosuit.
But it was not as straightforward as it sounds.
See, scientists know which regions of the
brain broadly
control movement, but for this contraption
to work, the system
needed to match up an exact pattern of active
brain cells
with a specific movement.
And that’s not exactly easy. Like, what
does [this] look like
on a brain scan, compared to, like, [this]?
The team started by having the patient think
about a specific action
—like rotating his wrist or moving a wheelchair
forward.
The computer—which was hooked up wirelessly
to his brain—
would record the signals that thought created.
Then, over the course of two years, the computer
created a model
of the patient’s brain—basically like
a dictionary that matched
brain patterns to movements.
In a way, he was both training the computer
to understand
his brain signals, and training himself to
think in a structured
and focused way that a computer would understand.
And in the end, the patient was able to use
the system
to do all sorts of things!
He drove a wheelchair and made virtual hands
do things like
turn over or touch a target.
He also gained the ability to start and stop
an exoskeleton.
It was attached to a harness mounted on the
ceiling, so while
he wasn’t completely independent, he could
essentially walk.
Now, this wasn’t the first time scientists
created
an interface between a brain and a computer,
but the small surgery
it required was much less invasive than other
methods.
And while it’s still a long ways from widespread
use, it’s a big step
toward developing a way for paralyzed people
to control robotic limbs
with nothing but their thoughts.
In March 2020, doctors in Oregon announced
that they had used
the DNA-editing tool CRISPR-Cas9 in a living
person
for the first time.
Their goal was to treat a rare genetic condition
that causes blindness by…
just… fixing the faulty code in the DNA.
Which is actually possible because Cas9 is
an enzyme
that can cut apart molecules, and it allows
researchers
to snip a strand of DNA at a precise location
and replace faulty code with new instructions.
This technology itself isn’t that new.
Scientists have been using it to edit genes
in bacteria,
fruit flies, plants, and other organisms since
2013.
And in a different study, also published in
February of 2020,
doctors actually edited the white blood cells
of three people
with cancer—but they did the editing outside
the patients’ bodies.
That same month, though, the team in Oregon
took gene-editing
a step further when they announced that they
had used it directly
in the human body to edit the genes of living
cells—
although when we filmed this video,
they didn’t yet have their results.
This clinical trial involved a patient with
a rare inherited
eye disease called Leber congenital amaurosis,
which affects
the cells of the retina and causes blindness.
And this disease can be caused by a mistake
in a gene called CEP290 -
that’s what researchers wanted to fix.
In the trial, doctors used a needle to inject
a few drops
of a solution containing the CRISPR-Cas9 system
into the space
just behind the retina.
The idea was that CRISPR-Cas9 would find the
cells of the retina
and snip away the mutation, leaving behind
a functional gene.
If it works, it should be a permanent cure.
And the retina is a good place to test out
gene editing in humans,
because it’s isolated from the rest of the
body—so changes made
on one eye won’t affect any other part of
the body.
After all, there are a lot of valid reasons
to be concerned about
doing gene-editing in humans—but this is
a pretty safe place to start.
And if the procedure does cure the patient’s
blindness,
it’s not just good news for people with
this rare disease;
it could open up the possibility for other
gene therapy treatments as well.
These days, there’s not much you can do
if you scrape up a knee
or get any injury that breaks the skin.
It’s just got to heal, and it takes as long
as it takes.
But in 2018, researchers at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison
reported that they had built a device that
healed injuries
in rats four times faster than they heal on
their own.
The device itself is really simple: It’s
basically
a little electric bracelet that delivers gentle
electric pulses
to the site of an injury.
Now electricity naturally plays a role in
helping wounds heal.
Scientists have known since the 1800s that
anytime you get an injury,
your body naturally creates an electric field
around it.
And in more recent studies, researchers have
even watched cells
move around and restructure themselves in
response
to an electric field.
You know. As they do.
They still don’t know exactly how the cells
are responding
to that electricity, but electricity seems
to promote the growth
of new cells, which is what it takes to close
a wound.
So this device was designed to speed up healing
by providing additional electricity to the
injured region.
And in rats, the results were kind of incredible.
An injury that normally took almost two weeks
to heal closed up
in three days.
Eventually, researchers hope to test something
like this
on human skin.
And in the meantime, they’ve found evidence
that this technology
may even have an extra perk—it might reverse
baldness.
In a separate experiment, they applied a patch
with
the same technology to mice with a genetic
condition keeping them
from producing certain chemicals that make
hair grow.
So the mice are naturally hairless, but after
just nine days,
they’d grown hair under the electric patch.
Researchers believe the patch works by stimulating
the cells in
the area so they release those chemicals that
tell hair to grow.
Now, you may have noticed that your head is
not mouse skin.
But if tests in humans go well, products with
this technology
could eventually hit the market, but in the
meantime—
in case you need me to say it—don’t try
this at home.
Everywhere around the world, there are more
people
who need organs than there are donors.
Like, right now, there are over 100,000 people
in the U.S.
waiting for kidneys.
And even in a record-setting year like 2019,
fewer than
a quarter of those people will get them.
So lives depend on finding more kidneys.
And in 2015, doctors in the U.K. found a new
way to put kidneys
from deceased donors back in business, using
a technique
called ex-vivo normothermic perfusion.
This technique uses a jolt of nutrients to
repair kidneys
from deceased donors and make them usable
again—which is not easy.
Because, as soon as a person dies, their organs
start to deteriorate.
Doctors can slow that deterioration by chilling
an organ,
but even then, kidneys have to be transplanted
within a day or two,
or they’re often too far gone.
This new procedure helps by putting new life
into kidneys
that have passed the usual point of no return.
First, the kidney gets removed from the deceased
donor and kept cold,
just like usual.
Then it has to travel—sometimes down the
hall,
other times to a different city.
Once it gets where it’s going, it goes into
a special machine
that’s kind of like a spa… but for kidneys.
It pumps warm blood and nutrients through
the organ until
it’s working at peak efficiency.
Then it’s good to go back to work in the
world of the living.
What’s cool about this procedure is it doesn’t
just wake
the kidney back up—it also gives the surgeons
a chance
to make sure the kidney works on a machine,
before it goes into a human.
Kidneys that were borderline become healthy
enough
to use after this little trip to the kidney
spa.
And, so far, the early results are promising.
Initial studies show that the revived kidneys
are at least
as safe as kidneys typically used for transplants.
Other trials are still in progress to make
sure it’s completely safe,
but if things go well, this could save a lot
of lives.
For now, many of these advances are proofs
of concept and still
far from being your everyday reality, but
they show how quickly
science fiction can become science and help
us to live
longer, healthier lives.
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow!
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who make it possible
for us to share all this amazing science with
you.
If you’d like to join our amazing community
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