I definitely believe that within my life time there will be many breakthrough innovations, especially when it comes to human augmentation. If we think about the technology we have today it stills blows my mind how we have computerized glasses, AI powered arms, and even the development in CRISPR gene editing. With the help of AI, I think that we can definitely create more efficient pieces of equipment that can better mimic human body parts. Of course, I do have my doubts as well. While someone may come up with groundbreaking augmented machinery in my lifetime, I do not think I will ever see it being implemented in health care until way after my life time. I think this is because of the extensive trials and experiments that must be conducted to make sure these enhances are safe for human beings. The human body is a very complicated and intelligent piece of work, and as of right now I do not see any life time solutions regarding augmented replacements. The body’s rejection rate for foreign objects is very high, so the patient will be on immune suppressant medication for a long time or until the augmentation needs to be changes.
Another thing that I hope to see in my life time is more studies on CRISPR gene editing. One of my biggest fears in life is Dementia and Alzheimers, mainly because it runs in my family. It’s a very sad disease to have or to experience a loved one having, and I hope that in the future we as a scientific community will be able to have enough information about our genes and our cells to pinpoint the cause for it. As the video above stated, CRISPR as we know now does not have the power to cure this disease because there is too much risk and too much unknown variables. For example, the Tau genes are microtubule stabilization proteins that when degraded or mutated can begin to aggregate, forming plaques inside of your neuronal cells. The key question is then: Is Alzheimer’s disease caused by the destabilization of the microtubule signaling network or is it from the numerous tau plaques invading the cell space? I wish in the future we can work together to find cures for diseases such as Dementia and Cancer. I also want to emphasize the importance of transparency of the health community to the population especially during the pursuit of finding cures or augmentations. I believe that the next 4 years will be extremely rocky for the education system, justice system, and the health system. But I can only hope that these trials the next 4 years will bring to us will allow us to become stronger together. Maybe this is me being too optimistic, which is ironic given the class revolves around Cyberpunk, but when it comes to healthcare I can only hope that we can start prioritizing curative medicine over maintenance medicine. But in this capitalistic society, as Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 77 so eloquently put it …
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