The Future of Medical Biotechnology

We are living through a period of very rapid progress in many areas of medical biotechnology, so what the future holds is really limited only by our imagination. For the near future, though, the expected developments fall mainly under the following headings:

Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine:

Advances in stem cell biology, materials engineering and nanotechnology over the last 10 years have transformed tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In particular, the ability to produce stem cells from a person’s own skin cells, and to turn these stem cells into almost any cell in the body, is extremely important for making new organs and tissues to replace damaged or lost ones. Nanotechnological materials that resemble natural tissue, and that send the right signals so these cells turn into the right cell types, have also opened the way for the field. In the near future, broken bones, chronically painful knees and paralysis will be treated by regenerating the relevant tissues. A new era has begun in which start-ups are being founded in this field and the latest research is moving into clinical trials, with the help of angel investors, so that it can be commercialised.

Biotechnological Drugs:

Developing a drug, getting it licensed and bringing it to market takes 10 to 15 years and requires millions of dollars of investment and R&D. New software and the growing number of researchers working on systems biology have made it easier to develop new small-molecule drugs through rational design. But for many diseases where such drugs are very hard to develop, biotechnological alternatives such as antibodies can be developed much faster. Antibody drugs attract great interest, especially for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases, and are sold at very high prices. In the near future, the number of antibody-type drugs, especially recombinant antibodies, will keep rising, and RNA-based drug systems will also come into use. Our knowledge of RNA grows every day, and the modifications needed to use RNA therapeutically are being developed. Nanotechnology will make both protein- and RNA-based drugs easier to administer, extend their half-life in the body and allow targeted delivery, making biotechnological drugs easier to use in future.

Personalised Medicine:

Thanks to advances in DNA sequencing, a human genome can now be sequenced and analysed in less than a week. As our knowledge of the genome grows, combining hospital data with genome data has made it easier to find which drug will work better for which patient, and which mutations raise the risk of which diseases. From here on, as this information is collected more widely and in more detail, and as far more people’s DNA is sequenced and compared with genome data, it will become possible to identify drugs tailored to each person’s genome and to take precautions against likely diseases.

Next-Generation Vaccines:

Since they were first invented, vaccines have been key tools of preventive medicine. But in a globalised world with growing transport networks, diseases spread far more easily between countries and even continents. As a result, some diseases thought to have been eradicated have reappeared, and infectious diseases spread quickly. Over the last 10 years, the rapid spread of Zika virus, swine flu (H1N1), bird flu and Ebola, and the difficulty of treating them, have reminded us once again how important it is to develop vaccines quickly. Classic vaccines combine inactivated microorganisms or viruses with traditional adjuvants and take time to produce. Alongside or instead of them, we need vaccines that use recombinant proteins and are strengthened with next-generation adjuvants. Researchers are working intensively on this, and such vaccines are expected to become more widespread in the near future.

Gene Therapy:

Advances in genome sequencing are very helpful for understanding the causes of hereditary diseases. Knowing the causes of single-gene diseases in particular makes it possible to treat them with gene therapy. In gene therapy, carrier systems containing the healthy gene are introduced into the body to replace the mutated gene, or the mutant gene is inactivated, or a new gene is added to treat the disease. In the early years, several patients treated with gene therapy died, and clinical trials in the USA were halted in the 1990s. They were allowed again after the techniques improved. Gene therapy has been licensed in China and is expected to be licensed in developed countries in the near future.