21st_Century_Bodies外文电子书籍.pdfVIP

Technological developments and space exploration continue with unabated enthusiasm yet the science of the body remains a much more controversial frontier. Advances in medicine could potentially lead to immortality. Self-healing skin, the ability to re-grow severed limbs and the implantation of artificial aids brings us ever closer to hybridization; where man and machine merge. Surgeon Anthony Atala is the director of the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, where his work focuses on growing and regenerating tissues and organs. He has also developed a 3-D printer that can use living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Smart textiles could make fashion a biological process, where clothing is grown and cultured, and then infused with extremely high-tech features. These developments signal an unlimited future for human design. Studies in genetics first began in the mid-19th century and in the past decade major advances have been made in the manipulation of DNA. Doctors and physicians are currently attempting to isolate genes and then reproduce them using stem cell research. This type of development could mean an end to long- term illnesses like diabetes or fatal diseases like cancer. In the near future, newborn babies will be genotyped to reveal their genetic vulnerabilities. Genetic screening is becoming cheaper and more accessible for parents and could predict which diseases the child would be sensitive to throughout their lives. The 23andMe company offers a genome sequencing service where patients can be alerted to their disease risk factors and predict their response to drugs. Certain diseases could be partially prevented through modified diets and medicat