Below are a few more of the recent advances in modern medicine. If we could organize and automate our medical records, medical advances would expand exponentially.

» Genetic testing at home (March, 2005) - An increasing number of companies are marketing tests that can show predisposition to a number of maladies, from breast cancer to blood clotting. They are exploiting the genetic discoveries from the complete map of all human genes published five years ago. The tests are cheap, easy to administer (often just a cotton swab inside the cheek) and the results are available online, cutting out the visit to the doctor's office. In addition, test results aren't usually noted in an official medical record, which keeps sensitive information away from insurance companies. Genetic testing is usually priced a la carte with prices ranging from $200 to $400, for a predisposition to cystic fibrosis, blood clotting, breast cancer, iron overload, and a heightened risk for lung and liver diseases. Most patients still need a doctor or genetic counselor to interpret the results.

» Deafness Cure - (February 2005, NewScientist news service) A pioneering form of gene therapy has apparently cured deafness in guinea pigs, raising hopes that the same procedure might work in people. "It's the first time anyone has biologically repaired the hearing of animals," according to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The therapy promotes the regrowth of crucial hair cells in the cochlea, the part of the inner ear which registers sound. The experiment worked beyond expectation. "The recovery of hair cells brought the treated ears to between 50% and 80% of their original hearing thresholds," says Yehoash Raphael. The team found that hair cells were created from cells lining the scala media which, according to biological orthodoxy - should not be able to turn into other cell.

» Heart zapper - (December, 2004) Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have shown that an electric zap is key for growing a tissue patch that could repair damaged hearts. The researchers started by attaching rat cardiac cells to a three-dimensional collagen scaffold, which acts as a frame for the cells to grow on and then dissolves. They zapped the cells with electrical pulses modeled on a rat heartbeat for several days, inducing them to grow into beating patches about the size of a dime, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online.
The scientists used a pacemaker to produce electric signals that mimicked a heartbeat. The electrical stimulation was a key ingredient in growing the heart tissue quickly and getting all the cells to beat in unison, according to the researchers. They bathed the heart patch in a medium of nutrients and gases to keep it pumping, and eight days later, the cells developed into tissue similar to that of the native heart.
The electrical stimulation forced the cells to beat in sync just like a real heart, the researchers believe, rather than various cells beating at different rates. The zapping also allowed the cells to grow into an "ultrastructure" in which signals can pass quickly from cell to cell. The goal is to re-create the tissue's natural environment, an approach called biomimetics.

»T-rays - (August, 2005) T-rays are a versatile technology that can spot cracks in space shuttle foam and see biological agents through a sealed envelope and detect tumors without harmful radiation.
T-rays are the next wave in imaging and sensing technology. Based on the terahertz region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
T-ray systems can provide valuable spectroscopic information about the composition of a material and are safer than X-rays for biological applications, with photon energies that are 1 million times weaker than X-ray photons.

» Holography memory - (August, 2005) InPhase Technologies of Colorado has developed a DVD with more than 60 times the storage capacity of a standard DVD and ten times faster. The disc can store up to 128 hours of video content.
It's likely to be one of the first commercial systems to use holographic storage in which bits are encoded in a light-sensitive material as the three-dimensional interference pattern of lasers.
Unlike CDs and DVDs, which store data bit by bit on their surfaces, holographic discs store data a page at a time in three dimensions, enabling huge leaps in capacity and access speed. This could dramatically change how we use microelectronics.
The theoretical promise of holographic storage has been talked about for 40 years, but advances in smaller and cheaper lasers, digital cameras, projector technologies, and optical recording materials have finally pushed the technology to the verge of the market. Movies, video games, and location-based services like interactive maps could be put on postage-stamp-size chips and carried around on cell phones. A person's entire medical history, including diagnostic images like x-rays, could fit on an ID card and be quickly transmitted to or retrieved from a database.
InPhase's initial product launch is slated for late 2006.

» Of mice and men - (October, 2005) Genetically altered mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs. Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back.
The results stunned scientists because if such regeneration is possible in this mammal, it might also be possible in humans. The researchers also made a remarkable second discovery: When cells from the regenerative mice were injected into normal mice, the normal mice adopted the ability to regenerate. And when the special mice bred with normal mice, their offspring inherited souped-up regeneration capabilities.

» Light Transportation - A key technological breakthrough led by the University of Edinburgh suggests that a futuristic world where people can move objects about 'remotely' with laser pointers could be closer than we think. Chemists working on the nanoscale have managed to move a tiny droplet of liquid across a surface - and even up a slope - by transporting it along a layer of light-sensitive molecules.

» Reanimation - (September, 2005) Scientists have been able to reanimate dogs after several hours of clinical death in attempts to develop suspended animation for humans. US scientists have succeeded in reviving the dogs after three hours of clinical death, paving the way for trials on humans within years.
Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution. The animals are considered scientifically dead, as they stop breathing and have no heartbeat or brain activity. Three hours later, their blood is replaced and the zombie dogs are brought back to life with an electric shock.
Plans to test the technique on humans should be realized within a year (before the end of 2006), according to the Safar Centre."

» Home DNA tests are being offered by Amazon.com and Target.com. Both sell a British company's $30 DNA kits, which come with a cheek swab and a storage tin. For an extra $110, users can send for an identifying code extracted from their DNA profile and an analysis of how their genes stack up to those of the world's various races.
Sales of the Catgee DNA Storage and Profile Kits have jumped by 40 percent since the online merchants began offering them in earnest earlier this year, said David Nicholson, managing director of London-based DNA Products. Now the company is even packaging "baby" DNA kits in pink and blue colors, hoping to tap into the baby-shower gift market. 
The company has sold about 60,000 kits around the world over the past few years.

» Human Eye Silicon Chips have been developed by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania that could be "embedded directly into the eye and connected to the nerves that carry signals to the brain's visual cortex. It should help people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, which is the gradual death of one's retinal cells, those really useful bits of organic matter that convert light into nerve impulses for the brain to process. This chip could remove the need for an external camera. It mimics the way a healthy retina adjusts to light intensity, contrast, and even movement.

>>Artificial Hands have been developed by Touch Bionics and its i-LIMB Hand and ProDigits partial hand prostheses are available and have been successfully fitted in the United States and Europe. The i-LIMB Hand looks and acts like a real human hand and is the world's first widely available prosthetic device with five individually powered digits. The hand offers an intuitive control system that uses a traditional myoelectric signal input to open and close the hand's life-like fingers. Myoelectric controls utilize the electrical signal generated by muscles in the remaining portion of a patient's limb. This signal is picked up by electrodes that sit on the surface of the skin.