These future therapeutics collectively represent the next wave of innovation in healthcare; some are already entering the market. Their growing success is down to a number of changes in the philosophy and practice of medicine. First, there has been a gradual move towards seeing medicine's goal as actively maintaining good health, rather than just fixing things when the body goes wrong. Second, a growing number of medical domains have begun to appreciate the complex properties of the body's own immune system, and to work with them. A third factor is the availability of increasingly sophisticated diagnostic and monitoring tools, which give previously inaccessible insights into the structure and function of the body's biology.
Within 25 years, the convergence of advances in these domains will, it is hoped, turn medicine from a restorative into a preservative model.
Selection of GESDA best reads and further key reports
Electrical therapies are still a fast-moving field, but their efficacy and acceptance is growing, as highlighted by a recent review in STAT News.1 In 2002, Kevin Tracey published “the inflammatory reflex” to clarify the link between vagus nerve stimulation (VNS) and its effects on the immune system.2 It remains a useful overview of the mechanisms of VNS's effects on the body downstream of the nervous system. Sixteen years later, Johnson and Wilson updated the field with “A review of vagus nerve stimulation as a therapeutic intervention”, an overview of FDA-approved vagus nerve modulation and its increasingly clear role beyond approved uses.3 Davenport & Kalakota highlighted the future of AI and medical data analysis in 2019.4
In 2021, Arnout et al summarised the promise of the immunome,5 Kulkarni et al highlighted the current landscape of nucleic acid therapeutics,6 Damase, Tulsi et al examined the future of RNA therapeutics,7 and El Kadiry et al reviewed the field of cell therapy.8
