Looking Ahead

The discovery of the structure of DNA—like the discovery of X rays at the end of the 19th century or the detection of bacteria more than two centuries before that—has radically altered medicine and opened previously unknown frontiers. Equipped with a map of the human genome (the complete genetic code), researchers in the next millennium hope to root out the genetic causes of a wide range of inherited diseases, from schizophrenia to cystic fibrosis to hemophilia to many types of cancer. Of perhaps greater significance, many scientists believe that advances in molecular genetics are setting the course for fundamental changes in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. Instead of merely treating the symptoms of disease, as they do now, physicians of the next millennium may develop the ability to routinely identify and correct the causes of disease before symptoms appear.
And yet, despite Western medicine's stunning success in fighting disease and extending human life, the health of much of the developing world is worsening. Modern vaccines and antibiotics would save tens of millions of lives each year throughout the developing world, where people are continuously struck down by malaria, tuberculosis, polio, pneumonia, and other easily treatable disorders. And the vast majority of people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) now live in the developing world, where access to costly life-extending medications is beyond the reach of most of those infected. Finding ways to extend the magnificent contributions of Western medicine to those who need it most therefore constitutes one of the greatest medical challenges of the coming millennium.
source: encarta encyclopedia