Finally, some cures!
A happy new year, fellow China fans! Here’s a look back at one aspect of China’s successful year, medicine. Spend 5 seconds considering each advance, below, and I promise you’ll be astonished before you reach mid-page.
Cures
Transformer Base Editing (tBE) cures acute thalassemia. A 14-year-old Fudan boy no longer needs blood transfusions after his hemoglobin increased to normal levels.
LVA surgery cures Alzheimer’s. Patient recovered significant memory and conversed normally after deep cervical lymphatic-venous anastomosis.
Deep brain stimulator controls Meige syndrome. DBS treats epilepsy, Parkinson’s, significant depression by activating or inhibiting neuron signals.
Autoimmune Diseases: the world’s first remission in patients with autoimmune disorders (severe myositis and systemic sclerosis) using bioengineered, donor-derived immune cells, raising hopes for mass production of cutting-edge CAR-T therapies.
Highly potent HIV-1 antibody achieves 100% inhibition against AIDS, with low risk of drug resistance.
Monogenic Diseases: The first IVF baby screened through whole genome amplification turned 10 in September. MALBAC has produced 6,000 healthy newborns by screening for 1,200 monogenic diseases1.
CAR-T cell therapy cures 20 children with systemic lupus erythematosus removes T-cells from their blood, genetically alters them and, upon re-injection into the body, they recognize and target sick cells.
AI-based treatment works for gastric cancer and tumor prevention.
Bioengineered, CRISPR-modified immune cells cure severe autoimmune conditions, the first step towards mass producing such therapies.
World first: stem cells reverse diabetes. A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes started producing her own insulin in 90 days.
Single shot cell therapy cures asthma. Based on advanced techniques used for cancer, shows great promise in animals.
Technology
Tsinghua digitally simulates entire medical treatments that are conducted at an AI hospital.
42 AI robot doctors at first AI hospital ‘treat’ 3,000 a day. Simulates a medical environment where real doctors and medical students practice diagnostic skills on virtual patients.
China contributes 23% of the world’s innovative drug pipeline and leads advances in biologics, precision medicine, and synthetic biology.
113 innovative drugs approved since 2021, $14 billion annually. 37 innovative drugs and 51 medical devices approved this year.
Medically certified Huawei Watch monitors, reports, alerts blood pressure w. precise pressure sensor, pressure feedback and less air-resistance.
A drop of blood for 90% accurate gastric cancer test, the #4 cancer killer. Early diagnosis relies on uncomfortable endoscopies and serum markers, whose detection rate is 20%.
Pig-to-Human Kidney Transplant: A team successful transplanted a genetically modified pig kidney into a brain-dead recipient.
Spinal Cord Injuries: a new device helps paralyzed patients walk again.
Surgical suture heals wounds 50% faster. Biodegradable sutures turn movement into electrical stimulation.
A jellyfish-inspired luminous artificial spider silk for surgical sutures stays luminous for 60 hours, helps ensure safe, complete sutures.
Single-cell bacteria identified without requiring chemical labels using enhanced filter-array-based hyperspectral imaging for 92% accuracy.
First chip to measure dose rates of X- and gamma-ray radiation from 100 nanoSievert to 10 milliSievert/hr has started mass production.
Monogenic diseases are caused by a mutation in a single gene.
