2011 and beyond
By Jason Major
TechNyou
Because of the personal information harvest Google has on people, they reckon they can guess what your next move is going to be. They will predict what you want before you want it and it will send you a message telling you.
As 2010 draws to a close, predictions for what science will are a little less immediate. Making predictions about scientific advances only 12 months out is easy as science happens in small incremental steps. It takes time for a good idea or serendipitous finding to translate into something useful in any commercial sense. What is difficult is predicting what our lives will be like in 10 or 20 years time. Science may go in small incremental steps, but those steps, which are generating knowledge, are increasing their pace at a remarkable rate. Picking the ideas that will run the gauntlet to emerge victorious in the wake of failed, politically incorrect, socially unacceptable or commercially unviable ideas is like backing a winner at the Melbourne Cup. You only have a form guide, intuition, your own knowledge and a degree of luck to work with.
Despite crappy odds, I have dug out the predictions of a few sciency people plus added a few of my own, though mine are what I predict not to expect. Based on questions received at TechNyou there is a lot of expectation of what science will deliver and they expect it today, tomorrow at the latest. The problem is that it is often based on hope and hype rather than reality. So I provide the reality check.
First though the predictions. Here are what a few people think.
Math and IT
Our predictive powers are getting a boost from mathematic modeling and computing grunt, though some of the answers might leave us going, What the…!.
Steven Strogatz, Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell University
“We’re going to see scientific results that are correct, that are predictive, but are without explanation. We may be able to do science without insight, and we may have to learn to live without it. Science will still progress, but computers will tell us things that are true, and we won’t understand them.”
Genome sequencing
Some serious advances are being made here and although 2011 is unlikely to see a human genome sequenced in a few hours for $1000, a prediction made back in about 2002, it is tantalisingly close. See Imperial College, London research suggesting that with some cool nanotechnology we will soon be reading our genome in minutes.
Reading your immune system
David Haussler, Director, Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering
“You’ll have a number of reports where people will have their genome sequenced, but there will be new types of genomes being read. We can read genomes from your immune cells. They adapt throughout your lifetime so they can protect you from diseases. Reading those genomes will be important, and you’re going to hear a lot about them next year.”
Gene hunters
The gene hunters will continue to churn out genes associated with all sorts of human traits, but more importantly we will start to get a handle on the epigenetic relationships, that is, the relationship between our genes and environment and more importantly how these external influences operate to regulate the function of our genes. Having said that, the deeper we look, the more complex it becomes, so don’t expect miracle cures.
As for the gene hunters, every day new papers are published revealing the function of previously unknown genes and there potential links to disease. The next step is to translate that knowledge into the clinic with effective treatments and drugs. John Cleese puts it into perspective.
See also following articles from Australian Life Scientist
Understanding human evolution and consciousness
Stem cells
There is great hope that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) will negate the need for embryonic stem cells. iPSCs are adult cells that have been reprogrammed to be embryonic-like in the pluripotency. Recent research managed the reprogramming with only one gene needing to be inserted into the adult cell. There is still a number of obstacles to overcome but it is likely in the next 10 years there will be advances in this field and in the clinical use of embryonic stem cells to treat specific diseases such as macular degeneration and other vision problems. One definite for 2011 will be the continuation of the stem cell tourism trade where unscrupulous operators will play on people’s desperation and convince them to cough up loads of $$ for an unproven and potentially risky stem cell transplant.
DIY stem cells
Rob Carlson, Principal, Biodesic
“It seems pretty likely within this year someone will show how to go from an adult peripheral blood draw to pluripotent stem cells. It means anyone who wants to try to make stem cells will be able to give it a whirl.”
and in more detail on Carlson’s own blog
IT and artificial intelligence
In the realm of artifical intelligence (AI), the closest commercial application will simply be a better robot vacuum cleaner. Other than that, the best on offer for the immediate future is remote controlled robots robot avatars – can’t see the point myself, but then I am a bit of a luddite.
For a peek into a speculative future a bit further away, Ray Kurzweil has taken an interest in how we could build a brain, though I tend to think Kurzweil’s time frame for his predictions is a little out.
And for the Tech Heads out there – another version of the future of AI from Ben Goertzel
Reality check
Science is often the victim of hype: nanotechnologies or gene therapies curing disease, GM crops that can prevent malnutrition, stem cells that will treat Parkinsons, spinal damage and replace organs.
All this may one day be a reality, but the hype surrounding the science has handed out a lot of false hope, especially in the area of stem cells. So here are my predictions for what will not make the light-year jump from the lab to lounge room, in the next few years at least.
Stem cells: We certainly will not be making our own organs from stem cells (unless you include skin as an organ). Nor will we be repairing spinal damage and enabling people to leave their wheel chairs. If the next two years show that we can use ESCs safely that will be a good start.
Gene therapy: This science will still struggle until they can gain better control over where a gene inserts itself into a genome, they can transform a sufficient number of cells to achieve some sort of clinical benefit, or they can perfect the method of correcting the code of an existing gene, again, in enough cells to have a clinical effect.
Nanobots: By nanobots I mean autonomous nano-sized machines that will scurry through our bodily fluids repairing damage and disease. There are too many laws of physics to overcome for any of this to be a reality in the near future and I suspect beyond. And you can forget the grey goo scenario.
GM crops: The much hyped GM crops with traits such as drought-tolerance or increased nutritional qualities will not appear in 2011, but the Golden Rice at least is predicted to be commercially available by 2012, assuming it gets through the regulatory hoops and hurdles. But any other such crops are at least five years away, if not more. The one certainty is that the controversy surrounding them will remain, regardless if there is a bounty of scientific evidence suggesting they are safe.
Synthetic biology: Our first attempt at “playing God” involved stitching together a copy of a real pathogen genome from synthetic DNA. This pathogen copy did self-replicate, but it if we define synthetic biology as constructing an original genome from the ground up that is self-replicating and has some function, then we are a long way off, though the research and conversations at a scientific level are growing, so I suspect within the next 5-10 years we will see some significant announcements.
