The Holy Grail of Medicine

Only in the past few years have I realized the forward thinking demonstrated by all those episodes of Star Trek I watched as a child. To many of the followers, the show attacked more than just space exploration but incorporated limitless technological and sociological advances. When discussing this with a former Trekkie roommate of mine, he immediately rattled off many advanced thought processes the show promoted, particularly the arguably first interracial kiss aired on tv involving James Kirk and Lt. Uhura.

Many of the technologies from the tv show have come to fruition over the years including that of the cellular telephone based off of the Star Trek communicator. My hopes are that medicine will soon advance to that of Star Trek.

Many studies have been done involving stem cells over the past decade. Only recently has technology been able to create stem cells from human tissues, rather than use embryonic stem cells, to be used for regenerating various tissue types mostly still in the laboratory. In order to do this skin cells need to be cultured and bathed in chemicals and drugs to alter their growth and development abilities to act as stem cells. These cells in turn can be placed in vivo and respond to chemical signals from neighboring cells in order to differentiate to cells of the body's own form and function, potentially to restore cellular functions that have been lost. Results so far have been promising, but there are still many kinks to work out.

At some point in the future, I believe we will have the medical technology similar to Star Trek's healing laser in the form of an injection. Utilizing the methodology of turning our own body's cells into stem cells, chemicals may one day be locally injected into some damaged tissue. This would manipulate the remaining living cells into stem cells momentarily, only to be differentiated into cells reestablishing their normal form and function from our own body's cellular signaling. Medical practice such as this may be a long way off but will one day change medicine as we know it.