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Associated Emerging Topics:
2.1Cognitive Enhancement
The 21st century has seen an acceleration in our ability to decode cognitive states from both invasive brain implants and, increasingly, non-invasive techniques. It has also become possible to manipulate those brain states in increasingly targeted ways using a wide spectrum of methods, from electrical to chemical. Thanks to these recent insights from neuroscience and the development of tools able to restore impaired brain function, demands for upgrades to healthy cognitive functioning have steadily grown.1
2.2Human Applications of Genetic Engineering
The relatively recent invention of CRISPR — an editor that can snip DNA to alter its sequence — has racked up a raft of gene editing successes against a variety of diseases, including cancer,123 eye diseases, and blood diseases.45 The field is now poised to bring unprecedented disruption in medicine, as well as new possibilities for human enhancement. Today, most gene editing is not applied to living embryos or directly done on patients, but is ex vivo: as, for example, in treatments for sickle cell anaemia.6 However, much of the groundwork being done today is with a different vision: to deliver the genome editor into the patient’s body, where it will find the right cells and perform its task.
2.3Healthspan Extension
Ageing is the greatest risk factor driving both morbidity and mortality. While research has yielded few solutions to chronic diseases of ageing – such as cardiovascular diseases, most cancers, and neurodegenerative and metabolic syndromes – in the past few decades, research findings have begun to suggest that there are also specific, underlying biological pathways that unite the diseases associated with ageing. And so, rather than accept the ageing process as a natural process of life, scientists and regulators are working out how to treat the process as a risk factor for disease in its own right, and target it for treatment.1 This pursuit is being formalised into the discipline known as fundamental geroscience.
2.4Consciousness Augmentation
Science offers no standard, widely agreed definition of consciousness. Currently, there is also no agreed theory of consciousness, and it is unlikely that there will be one for the next quarter-century. Our best theories, Integrated Information Theory and Global Neuronal Workspace Theory, have recently been assessed in an Adversarial Collaboration test: though successful in some areas, they faced “substantially challenging” outcomes in others.1
2.5Organoids
Research on disease and treatment pathways has been hampered by the fact that cultured cell lines do not respond to interventions in the same way that cells do in their natural environment of complex three-dimensional tissues. This is part of the reason why promising in-vitro studies must currently be followed up by animal studies, especially to test drugs. Organoids --- simplified versions of real organs --- promise to serve as a better proxy for the study of our tissues than either cell lines or animal models.
2.6Future Therapeutics
In wealthy countries, one third of the population between ages 40 and 75 currently die due to preventable diseases including cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and cancer. If the right medical information were available to act upon at the right time, it would be possible to predict and prevent many of these deaths. There are four broadly defined domains in which promising trials could transition drugs and devices into the clinic over the next five to 25 years: electrical therapies, data-led therapies, cell-based therapies, and targeted immune-therapies.
Related Content:
Deep Dive
At the inaugural Villars high-level Anticipation Workshop, a carefully chosen group of leaders from across several relevant disciplines met to discuss issues pertinent to the future of “neuro-augmentation”. The meeting was organised by the GESDA Academic Forum with the financial contribution of the foundation Defitech. A full list of attendees is available at the end of this report.
Opportunity
The biggest difference between two individuals doesn’t lie in their physical traits, but in the set of genes and proteins that constitute their immune systems. This complex ecosystem – the immunome – may hold the key to biggest health breakthroughs in the 21st century. Like the sequencing of the human genome, mapping myriad immunomes across diverse populations will advance immunology, opening avenues of innovation in health diagnostics and therapeutics. With the new help of machine learning (AI), breakthroughs will likely materialise in the next decade and could even lead toward human enhancement technologies.
Invited Contribution
The global transition to green energy depends on the continuing supply of particular metals and minerals. With many of the readily accessible sources of these commodities already being fully utilised, there has been a dramatic increase in interest in the harvesting and extraction of such minerals from the deep seabed, through submarine mining on an industrial scale.
Opportunity
By 2050 one in six people worldwide will be over the age of 65. This grey tsunami threatens to put a huge strain on health and economic systems as the burden of age-related illness booms and the proportion of working-age adults shrinks. But breakthroughs in our ability to slow the physical and cognitive decline associated with advanced years are on the horizon.
Opportunity
Brain implants already enable people with paraplegia to control robotic limbs, restore basic vision and modulate neural activity to treat diseases like Parkinson's. Over the next decade our growing ability to both read and write brain data will transform the treatment of neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions, but it will also increasingly be used to enhance cognitive function in healthy people.
Invited Contribution
During the past year, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) has consulted over 1200 scientists globally about which scientific advances in the coming 5, 10 and 25 years could have strong implications on the individual, our societies and the planetary ecosystem. This anticipatory mapping is described in the Science Breakthrough Radar and provides an overview of some of the emerging scientific topics which require significant anticipation and attention from world leaders. However, the pace of science and technology is such that this anticipation needs to be constantly reviewed and updated, and take in consideration the latest developments.
Debate
Our monitoring tool — which provides live data on the actions of selected civil society actors (citizens, small groups and NGOs) — detected around 20,000 “actions” in the areas covered by the Human Augmentation scientific platform, making this the least active domain of the Science Breakthrough Radar. This is due to technical nature of the field, which requires more advanced knowledge and is more niche than the other areas surveyed.
Debate
Analysis of mainstream media articles, blog posts and scientific articles over a period of 12 months reveals that the overall sentiment towards Human Augmentation is largely positive, although this positive bias is less strong on social media.
Opportunity
Recent technological advances in electronic miniaturization, brain signal detection, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for data analysis pave the way to a better understanding of neurological and mental health disorders. Anticipated developments offer potential for health, communication, good regulation, and memory enhancements. This outlook has generated huge financial investments from the public and private sectors, bringing the technologies to patients and consumers more quickly. Other applications, outside the medical field, are developing rapidly for neuromarketing, gaming and entertainment, and military purposes. With the scientific and technological landscapes rapidly accelerating, a global and inclusive approach enabling their development remains a challenge.
Opportunity
The price of sequencing a human genome has fallen from $2.7 billion to $300 in just 20 years. This dramatic improvement in our ability to read DNA is now setting the stage for an even bigger revolution in our ability to write our genetic futures. Over the next decade gene therapies that can tackle the most intractable inherited diseases and cancers will go mainstream.
Invited Contribution
This year marks the eightieth anniversary of the first time a human ingested LSD. Albert Hoffman’s first trip, in April 1943, began a period of experimentation and discovery in both academic and counter-cultural circles. The word “psychedelic” was coined by the psychiatrist Humphry Osmond about a decade later, and research into these chemicals’ potential therapeutic use continued for the next several decades — as did their recreational use. But this first psychedelic “revolution” came to a halt in the early 1970s, when a censorious attitude to recreational drugs led to many becoming controlled substances, with the result that serious scientific research into their applications became extremely difficult to conduct.