5 breakthrough medical advances in the decade

The first decade of the 21st century recorded breakthrough medical advances and 125 experts in many medical fields around the world agreed to select the five most influential medical advances of the decade. .

1. Successfully building a map of the human genome

In 2000, scientists in the International Human Genome Project published an outline of all human genes and posted them on the internet. For the first time, the whole world can download and fully read information into the entire human genome.

The human genome has been invested time and money from the 90s of the 20th century with two teams working on it: the Government-sponsored Human Genome Project, expected to be completed in 10 years with the amount of money coming up. $ 2.5 billion and Celera Genomics company spent more than $ 100 million in nearly a decade to conduct this independent study.

Both groups announced the draft genome on June 26, 2000 at a press conference attended by President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. 'It is a major turning point similar to the fact that people walk on the moon,' said Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Genome Research Institute.

In 2004, the 'final' outline was published by researchers and in 2007, supplemented by Dr Craig Venter, scientific director of Celera Genomics.

By successfully building a human genome map, we have the right to believe in the future with new drugs and new therapies that are more effective and less toxic to the human body.

2. The spectacularness of stem cell research

Perhaps no field has stimulated imagination and elicited debate in the community like stem cell research.

Despite being banned from the ban, advances in stem cell research are undeniable. For example, European researchers isolated bone marrow cells from two 7-year-old boys and then transplanted the transformed cells into these two boys to treat ALD (brain-related disease called Sex link X).

Stem cell researcher Dr. George Daley of Children's Hospital Boston calls the process of stem cell research in both embryos and adults in this decade a 'spectacular'.

Most recently, Chinese scientists have created a mouse from skin cells and this shows that science in the past decade has really created miracles and we have hope in the decade. This new century will have new treatments using stem cells.

3. Combination therapy for AIDS treatment

Since the emergence of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) in 1996, HIV is no longer a deadly disease but has become a chronic disease with the opportunity to last several decades.

Moreover, this 'synthetic blend' method also becomes a model for treating other diseases, from lung cancer to heart cancer.

For the past decade, researchers have been constantly refining this method to improve treatment effectiveness. As a result, HIV mortality has decreased worldwide.

4. Minimum penetration techniques - Revolution in surgery

10 years ago, every organ surgery left a scar of up to 15cm long but new surgical technology - minimally invasive techniques - helped the patient escape from the obsession of these terrible scars.

In the late 2000s, doctors at Cleverland Hospital began to apply this technique in taking an umbilical kidney in a kidney transplant surgery. Today, this technique is widely applied in uterine, ovarian surgery.

Surgeons also use robots to increase the accuracy of surgical operations. This has helped to shorten the time to stay in treatment, reduce health risks due to open surgery, and quickly recover patients.

5. Inventing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

'Reading taste' brain through every detail in soft tissues, studying brain activity when people think, work, speak; identify areas related to consciousness, memory, listening to music, reading, driving .; points out unusual points related to many neurotic disturbances, MRI is really a revolution in medicine.

Born in the early 90s of the last century but until 2003, this invention was recognized by the world and awarded a Nobel Prize. The Nobel Committee noted that there were 22,000 MRIs used globally with more than 60 million visits in 2002 and emphasized the harmlessness of not using X-rays.

Using this technology, researchers now have more valuable information about diseases such as depression, brain cancer, autism, memory disorders and even skin diseases.