In the long view, the Industrial Revolution changed the world more than all the Napoleons, Bismarcks and Disraelis who coincided with it. When the future, if any, looks back on our era, all the misery and folly of our endless political moiling and our war between superstition and reason may appear lo have been a sideshow to the rise of the Bioscience Revolution. Here a few tidbits that have came to my attention recently from this remarkable realm.
Baby Genomes: The Wall Street Journal (Dec. 30) reports that researchers in hospitals around the country now believe that the complete genome for every newborn will be routinely recorded in the future. Already a tiny pinprick draws blood “to check for more than two dozen possible conditions.”
Recording the infant’s genome would potentially provide vastly more information and could be archived for life, offering the ability to custom tailor treatments later in life as genetic science develops the ability to provide individualized treatments for more and more diseases.
An NIH grant (your tax dollars at work, government foes) has been awarded to several academic hospitals including UNC-Chapel Hill and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s to investigate the utility of genomic testing for newborns. The cost of $1,000 per infant is now prohibitive for universal application, but has already dropped sharply and is expected to continue to do so.
Blood Simpler: Speaking of pinprick blood tests, an article by this name from the New Yorker (Jan 5) tells the remarkable story of Elizabeth Holmes, a brilliant biochemical entrepreneur who at 30 has become, according to Forbes, “the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world.”.
As a Texas teenager she learned Mandarin because she supposed it would be necessary for the scientific career she aimed for. She wanted to attend a highly regarded summer program at Stanford to improve her skill, but it was only open to college students. She called so persistently demanding to be admitted that the secretary to the head of the program made him get on the phone to tell her no. Still she persisted, so to get rid of her he gave her an oral exam over the phone to prove she was unqualified. She was so qualified he bent the rules to let her attend.
Fast forward a few years. She is a rising sophomore at Stanford who has used her summer job at the Genome Institute in Singapore to invent a method to do all the blood testing that usually requires a large needle, the drawing of vials of blood and expensive testing. Her method requires a mere finger prick, is completely automated and is faster and far less expensive — a $50 cholesterol test can cost $3 using her method.
At 19, she dropped out of Stanford to start her company, Theranos. Her chemical engineering professor, and a Stanford dean of the engineering school, tried to talk her into staying in school. She didn’t. Instead he was soon on the board and then retired from Stanford to become a full-time employee. In other words, she is a force of nature. The professor was also instrumental in introducing her to movers and shakers including Stanford bigwigs and venture capitalists.
Among those now on her board are a former head of the CDC, the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, Henry Kissinger, former Sen. Sam Nunn and and the 93 year old George Schultz, former Secretary of State and Treasury. He and his wife have become like grandparents to Holmes, forcing her to take a day off to celebrate her birthday and trying to fix her up with eligible young men.
She’s too busy conquering the world. Her aim is to have her blood testing system available in a drugstore within 25 miles of every American in a few years and make blood tasting cheaper, less painful and available to patients without a doctor in the middle. Those competent to judge regard her as a biomedical Steve Jobs, only with a social conscience. Stay tuned.
Bad Luck. Statistical research suggests that two-thirds of the 31 most common cancers are the result of random mutations rather than environmental factors. It’s not clear how a cure will be developed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, when a gamma ray plays billiards with your genes for instance. However, researchers were quick to point out that 9 of the 31 cancers do have a big environmental component including lung, colon and skin, so you still need to quit smoking, eat right and use your sun-bloc.
Mutant Germs. Speaking of mutations, Northeastern University scientists believe they can create a new class of antibiotics that will be effective against scary bugs that have developed resistance to existing antibiotics, like staph, TB, pneumonia, salmonella and gonorrhea. Many of them prey on patients in hospitals who wind up gravely ill from a disease they caught while being cured of another. This breakthrough has long been sought and apparently has as much to do with an innovation in how to produce the antibiotics in mass quantities as in devising them in the first place.
Still Waiting: So far no news of breakthroughs to ease the misery of hundreds of millions afflicted with seasonal allergies or the common cold. Sneeze on, fellow sufferers. The age of miracles still has a way to go.