Amazing Medical Advances Coming On Stream

WSJ - 12.28.12

Surgeons at Boston Children's Hospital have developed a way to help children born with half a heart to essentially grow a whole one—by marshaling the body's natural capacity to heal and develop.

In our era of instant gratification, the world of medicine seems like an outlier. The path from a promising discovery to an effective treatment often takes a decade or more.

But from that process—of fits and starts, progress and setbacks and finally more progress—grow the insights and advances that change the course of medicine.

A decade ago, the completion of the Human Genome Project sparked optimism that cures for debilitating diseases were just around the corner. Cures still generally elude us, but now the ability to map human DNA cheaply and quickly is yielding a torrent of data about the genetic drivers of disease—and a steady stream of patients who are benefiting from the knowledge. On other fronts, technology is putting more power in the hands of patients, and researchers are learning to combat disorders by harnessing the body's own ability to heal and grow.


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