Future Healing
It's 2020. You're a doctor presented with a patient suffering from an advanced, untreated neurodegenerative disease. What do you do?
Several recent scientific developments give us some idea.
You start by sequencing the patient's DNA. If someone had told you that there was a case of brain disease this advanced within the city you wouldn't have believed it. The patient doesn't even have his DNA sequence on record. He must be a technophobe. It's not a problem really - the sequence is done quickly and cheaply.
Your computer chimes when it finds the genetic abnormality that's causing the problem. The patient possesses the ND5 mutation that puts him at high risk to contract Alzheimer's disease. The patient, of course, has other genetic abnormalities. But this is the only mutation that explains this problem.
It's time to arrest the disease to stop further damage. You consult a library of vector molecules - ORMOSIL's - that allow you to send corrected DNA directly to existing brain cells.
Through the skull cap that the patient is wearing, microscopic fibers burrow into the brain. As they travel into the brain they release the tailored ORMOSIL molecules with the corrected DNA.
The disease is stopped. No further damage will be done. Unfortunately your patient still can't remember his children's names or his own address. His brain is damaged. Your task now is to repair the damage.
You return to your computer and consult a library of available CBE's (cord-blood-derived embryonic-like stem cells). Millions of stem cell lines have been cultivated in microgravity conditions from cord blood. Using your patient's DNA sequence you find a near perfect match. You have a vial of these CBE's overnighted to your clinic.
The next morning you check the CBE's that have arrived. Sure enough, they are a near perfect match for your patient, but you can get it closer. Your computer now has the sequence of both the patient and the cord blood donor. It compiles and offers a DNA patch. You install the patch with another form of ORMOSIL (that's targeted to CBE's this time) pulled from your library.
Now you have a practically perfect CBE stem cell line for your patient. You need new brain stem cells. You bathe these CBE's in a cocktail of epidermal growth factor and fibroblast growth factor and various enzymes.
Once the CBE's are coaxed into becoming brain stem cells, you "seed" the patient's brain with these new matching brain stem cells. With proper follow-up therapy and perhaps additional genetic coaxing - accomplished once again with a versatile ORMOSIL molecule - the patient will begin to regain function within a month.
Lastly, you install a Mauna Kea therapeutic net that will allow you to track the brain stem cells being incorporated into the neural pathways. Later, if the patient chooses, he can use the neural net to experience perfect fidelity virtual reality, access the Internet, or even enhance intelligence via offsite processing.
You smile at this thought. Anyone who has allowed a case of Alzheimer's to advance to this point may never activate the net. It's too bad, though. He doesn't know what he's missing.
You detach the skullcap and turn the patient over to the nurse. As you walk back to your office you're smiling at a job well done.