The Cutting Edge of Medical Technology Content, Community & Collaboration
Buzzwords and Biomedical Trends to Watch in the Coming Decade
Colleagues,
As culled from Xconomy end of decade reviews ... Key trends to watch in 2010 ...
... Telemedicine and mHealth ... The growth of IT infrastructure, telecommunications and mobile phone networks, the underlying data systems, and the integration of these systems with existing commercial and health system infrastructure holds significant potential to improve health promotion and disease management. Patient management systems, improved supply chains, and remote treatment through telemedicine & mHealth are examples of applications of this growing infrastructure...
... ‘Cloud’ Computing and Mobile Devices. ... These innovations are already here ... the idea of a PC is becoming more and more distant as one can access immense centralized computing power and information anywhere and anytime. The productivity increases and the decentralization of the ability to mine data will create huge productivity gains everywhere, from the consumer sector to medicine ...
... Point-of-care diagnostic technologies ... A technique called isothermal nucleic acid amplification may dramatically simplify the processes and tools needed for diagnosing certain diseases in low-resource settings; and may eventually lead to instrument-free molecular infectious disease assays. By quickly and inexpensively identifying molecular markers of disease agents, this diagnostic innovation may enable highly specific treatments, displacing the “shotgun therapy” currently used in many cases. This approach will enable better patient care, as well as slow the emergence of antimicrobial resistance fueled by widespread use of broad-spectrum drugs...
... New vaccine technologies ... Nearly every licensed vaccine today uses decades-old technologies that require expensive factories to produce a single vaccine. New recombinant, platform-based technologies may greatly speed vaccine production, decrease manufacturing costs, and increase production in developing countries. Such platforms will allow multiple vaccines to be produced in a single facility using scalable technology that is readily transferrable. They will also facilitate development of vaccines for specific regions of the world, such as affordable vaccines for viral encephalitis in Asia and bacterial meningitis in Africa. Innovations in manufacturing and vaccine approaches will broaden opportunities for combination vaccines—offering protection against several diseases in a single shot...
... Vaccine thermostability technologies ... Spray drying, new liquid formulations, and alternative delivery techniques are helping to decrease the need for refrigeration of new vaccines. Given the number of new vaccines under development, these thermostability technologies have huge potential to decrease the burden on the cold chain infrastructure and facilitate delivery of lifesaving vaccines...
... Water, sanitation, and hygiene technologies ... Low-cost water purification and new “plug and play” components for safe water and sanitation may make safe water available to millions. Innovations in business models for delivery of safe water are opening new distribution channels...
... Genome Sequencing ... Who would have guessed that by the end of the decade, what took 10 years and several billion dollars to generate the first human genome sequence, could be done in a few days at roughly 10,000 times lower cost? This trend of increasing throughput and decreasing cost will continue with a number of new technologies on the horizon. Data processing and bioinformatics will become the bottleneck as the need grows to assemble and compare large numbers of genomes. Moore’s Law just can’t keep up...
... RNA Interference ... This is revolutionizing the ability to study the function of individual, and networks of genes, and raising the potential for a whole new class of therapeutics...
... P4 Medicine. A term associated with "Systems Biology" and coined by Leroy Hood to embody Personalized, Predictive, Preventive, and Participatory medicine ... This technology will come of age. Driven by new cost reductions in the ability to sequence human genomes, we will finally be able to understand who will get disease, detect the disease early, and administer medicines that will work, only to those who need it. Medicine will be more cost effective and more targeted and “Smart pills” will be better and cheaper than expensive hospitals....
... Synthetic Biology. ... the technical strides in sequencing and synthesis of genes into complex systems is nothing short of mind-boggling. The folks who will succeed here are not the providers of the biology, but those who understand and own the biology AND can integrate it into industries like fuel, and agriculture. Companies like Sapphire Energy are already developing technologies that will revolutionize fuels and agriculture as we know it. The United States will produce its own green crude oil at home and at huge scale by 2020...
... In-Vivo Cell Potentiation. ... Recent discoveries in stem cell biology and the new field of epigenetics have unlocked the ability to design drugs that can be delivered to the body and can cause cells in the body to change. Some call this “transdifferentiation,” but basically it is using drugs to trigger the body’s own ability to cure itself using our own cells ... Melanoma cells can be given signals to change into normal skin cells. Soon we will be able to tell the body to grow more new heart tissue, to grow new pancreas cells to cure diabetes, and even to fix our own bones faster ... The genes are just dormant, ready to be awakened by the right signal...
... Genome wide association studies (GWAS) ...this approach scans for markers across the genomes of many individuals to spot small variations that might be associated with a particular disease ... With the availability of many full human sequences, the identification of rarer, and perhaps more meaningful single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), is in the works...
... Single Molecule Measurements ... Such capability will lead to more sensitive measurements of biomarkers that have not even been detected yet. The relevance of these markers to disease and wellness will start to be uncovered ...
... Bioanalytical Science ... Developments will begin to have an impact on clinical diagnostics. There has been a revolution in imaging technology that can provide increasingly high-resolution pictures of the smallest components of the cell. These techniques are beginning to be applied to monitor living cells in real-time, albeit in laboratory environments, not inside the body. Look for these methods to advance and migrate into the clinic where label-free imaging will be conducted to identify lesions at the sub-cellular level...
... The Return of Nanotechnology. ... Look for major innovations in solar energy that can produce electricity at 6 cents per kilowatt hour and which will compete with conventional power without subsidy. These are in the field now and will blow away the current big names in solar thermal, concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) and thin film solar. New battery innovations on flexible substrates and new form factors that are 2-5 times more efficient than current lithium ion batteries will emerge from the laboratory.
... China. ... China will make strides in their own internal innovation. Some of the best and brightest are returning to China, and it is actually becoming much easier to start companies there ... While the United States total research funding will still dwarf the rest of the world and lead in interdisciplinary technology and fundamental innovation ... China will excel in applications development and deployment. The U.S. has invented 90% of the clean-tech innovations that matter, but has already lost the thin-film solar market to China and Europe because it has not funded it, scaled it and has not created a domestic market for it. China and the EU are leading in the solar industry even though it is mostly based on technology from the U.S...
To learn more, read on from the original author postings at:
Robert Nelsen is a co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He focuses on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and nanotechnology.
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/01/07/top-five-innovations-to-w...
David R. Walt is the Robinson Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University, and a co-founder, director, and chairman of the scientific advisory board of San Diego-based Illumina.
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/01/08/five-disruptive-biotech-id...
James Topper is a general partner with Frazier Healthcare Ventures.
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/12/29/top-five-medical-innovat...
Christopher Elias is president and CEO of PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health.
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/12/30/top-five-global-health-in...
ENJOY!
CC
As culled from Xconomy end of decade reviews ... Key trends to watch in 2010 ...
... Telemedicine and mHealth ... The growth of IT infrastructure, telecommunications and mobile phone networks, the underlying data systems, and the integration of these systems with existing commercial and health system infrastructure holds significant potential to improve health promotion and disease management. Patient management systems, improved supply chains, and remote treatment through telemedicine & mHealth are examples of applications of this growing infrastructure...
... ‘Cloud’ Computing and Mobile Devices. ... These innovations are already here ... the idea of a PC is becoming more and more distant as one can access immense centralized computing power and information anywhere and anytime. The productivity increases and the decentralization of the ability to mine data will create huge productivity gains everywhere, from the consumer sector to medicine ...
... Point-of-care diagnostic technologies ... A technique called isothermal nucleic acid amplification may dramatically simplify the processes and tools needed for diagnosing certain diseases in low-resource settings; and may eventually lead to instrument-free molecular infectious disease assays. By quickly and inexpensively identifying molecular markers of disease agents, this diagnostic innovation may enable highly specific treatments, displacing the “shotgun therapy” currently used in many cases. This approach will enable better patient care, as well as slow the emergence of antimicrobial resistance fueled by widespread use of broad-spectrum drugs...
... New vaccine technologies ... Nearly every licensed vaccine today uses decades-old technologies that require expensive factories to produce a single vaccine. New recombinant, platform-based technologies may greatly speed vaccine production, decrease manufacturing costs, and increase production in developing countries. Such platforms will allow multiple vaccines to be produced in a single facility using scalable technology that is readily transferrable. They will also facilitate development of vaccines for specific regions of the world, such as affordable vaccines for viral encephalitis in Asia and bacterial meningitis in Africa. Innovations in manufacturing and vaccine approaches will broaden opportunities for combination vaccines—offering protection against several diseases in a single shot...
... Vaccine thermostability technologies ... Spray drying, new liquid formulations, and alternative delivery techniques are helping to decrease the need for refrigeration of new vaccines. Given the number of new vaccines under development, these thermostability technologies have huge potential to decrease the burden on the cold chain infrastructure and facilitate delivery of lifesaving vaccines...
... Water, sanitation, and hygiene technologies ... Low-cost water purification and new “plug and play” components for safe water and sanitation may make safe water available to millions. Innovations in business models for delivery of safe water are opening new distribution channels...
... Genome Sequencing ... Who would have guessed that by the end of the decade, what took 10 years and several billion dollars to generate the first human genome sequence, could be done in a few days at roughly 10,000 times lower cost? This trend of increasing throughput and decreasing cost will continue with a number of new technologies on the horizon. Data processing and bioinformatics will become the bottleneck as the need grows to assemble and compare large numbers of genomes. Moore’s Law just can’t keep up...
... RNA Interference ... This is revolutionizing the ability to study the function of individual, and networks of genes, and raising the potential for a whole new class of therapeutics...
... P4 Medicine. A term associated with "Systems Biology" and coined by Leroy Hood to embody Personalized, Predictive, Preventive, and Participatory medicine ... This technology will come of age. Driven by new cost reductions in the ability to sequence human genomes, we will finally be able to understand who will get disease, detect the disease early, and administer medicines that will work, only to those who need it. Medicine will be more cost effective and more targeted and “Smart pills” will be better and cheaper than expensive hospitals....
... Synthetic Biology. ... the technical strides in sequencing and synthesis of genes into complex systems is nothing short of mind-boggling. The folks who will succeed here are not the providers of the biology, but those who understand and own the biology AND can integrate it into industries like fuel, and agriculture. Companies like Sapphire Energy are already developing technologies that will revolutionize fuels and agriculture as we know it. The United States will produce its own green crude oil at home and at huge scale by 2020...
... In-Vivo Cell Potentiation. ... Recent discoveries in stem cell biology and the new field of epigenetics have unlocked the ability to design drugs that can be delivered to the body and can cause cells in the body to change. Some call this “transdifferentiation,” but basically it is using drugs to trigger the body’s own ability to cure itself using our own cells ... Melanoma cells can be given signals to change into normal skin cells. Soon we will be able to tell the body to grow more new heart tissue, to grow new pancreas cells to cure diabetes, and even to fix our own bones faster ... The genes are just dormant, ready to be awakened by the right signal...
... Genome wide association studies (GWAS) ...this approach scans for markers across the genomes of many individuals to spot small variations that might be associated with a particular disease ... With the availability of many full human sequences, the identification of rarer, and perhaps more meaningful single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), is in the works...
... Single Molecule Measurements ... Such capability will lead to more sensitive measurements of biomarkers that have not even been detected yet. The relevance of these markers to disease and wellness will start to be uncovered ...
... Bioanalytical Science ... Developments will begin to have an impact on clinical diagnostics. There has been a revolution in imaging technology that can provide increasingly high-resolution pictures of the smallest components of the cell. These techniques are beginning to be applied to monitor living cells in real-time, albeit in laboratory environments, not inside the body. Look for these methods to advance and migrate into the clinic where label-free imaging will be conducted to identify lesions at the sub-cellular level...
... The Return of Nanotechnology. ... Look for major innovations in solar energy that can produce electricity at 6 cents per kilowatt hour and which will compete with conventional power without subsidy. These are in the field now and will blow away the current big names in solar thermal, concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) and thin film solar. New battery innovations on flexible substrates and new form factors that are 2-5 times more efficient than current lithium ion batteries will emerge from the laboratory.
... China. ... China will make strides in their own internal innovation. Some of the best and brightest are returning to China, and it is actually becoming much easier to start companies there ... While the United States total research funding will still dwarf the rest of the world and lead in interdisciplinary technology and fundamental innovation ... China will excel in applications development and deployment. The U.S. has invented 90% of the clean-tech innovations that matter, but has already lost the thin-film solar market to China and Europe because it has not funded it, scaled it and has not created a domestic market for it. China and the EU are leading in the solar industry even though it is mostly based on technology from the U.S...
To learn more, read on from the original author postings at:
Robert Nelsen is a co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He focuses on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and nanotechnology.
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/01/07/top-five-innovations-to-w...
David R. Walt is the Robinson Professor of Chemistry at Tufts University, and a co-founder, director, and chairman of the scientific advisory board of San Diego-based Illumina.
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/01/08/five-disruptive-biotech-id...
James Topper is a general partner with Frazier Healthcare Ventures.
http://www.xconomy.com/national/2009/12/29/top-five-medical-innovat...
Christopher Elias is president and CEO of PATH, a Seattle-based nonprofit organization that creates sustainable, culturally relevant solutions, enabling communities worldwide to break longstanding cycles of poor health.
http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2009/12/30/top-five-global-health-in...
ENJOY!
CC
Views: 148
MedTechIQ VideoLibrary
Upcoming Events
© 2024 Created by CC-Conrad Clyburn-MedForeSight.
Powered by
