Issue Date: June 19, 2005

Five miracle treatments headed your way

200-year-old people? E-mails sent by brain waves? The author of a new book sketches the (possible) future.

By David Ewing Duncan

We've heard it for years: Science is going to regenerate hearts when our originals wear out ... create super drugs that will make us forever svelte ... fend off nasty viruses ... make us forever young.

As I look at myself in the mirror, wrinkles crinkling around my eyes, I wonder: Will any of these miracle treatments stave off the inevitable for me, my friends and my family? Short of inflating my face with Botox and risking a Melanie Griffith nip-and-tuck disaster, am I destined to shrivel up? Will my body conk out like some old Chevy?

Many miracles already have arrived. Antibiotics, vaccines and better nutrition have extended Americans' life span from 47 in 1900 to nearly 80 today.

That's nothing, scientists say, compared with what's coming. Here's a sampling of what may be ahead -- if not for us, then for our children or grandchildren.

Wired brains

Although the brain holds the key to diseases and conditions from depression and autism to obesity, it remains largely a mystery. Yet neuroscientists are making breakthroughs in how specific neurons work, and in the brain's amazing ability to adapt and store information, that may lead to new drugs and other treatments. Sophisticated imaging scanners allow researchers to draw maps of which regions of the brain activate when people are depressed, hungry, adding 2 plus 2, or planning to kick a football. Using electrode implants, researchers are deciphering the specific spikes of electricity inside an activated neuron that tell the nervous system to perform an action, such as opening and closing a hand.

Implants in nearly 100,000 people now prevent epileptic seizures, as well as muscle tremors caused by Parkinson's disease, in severe cases. Some deaf people have implants that process sounds that are imputed into nerves that feed into the brain and allow them to hear. Last year, the first human, a quadriplegic, was implanted with electrodes in his brain. A computer translates electrical signals in his gray matter, letting him operate a computer (play games, send e-mail) using only thought.

Growing new parts

Doctors already are using "adult" stem cells -- cells inside each of us that are ready to grow into replacement cells for certain organs -- in early human trials to regrow damaged corneas and skin. Heart cells are not far behind. Much more controversially, researchers are delving into the secrets of stem cells derived from human embryos. They are easier to grow into any cell than their adult counterparts and may lead to treatments or cures for everything from diabetes to Alzheimer's disease. Cures are years off, and ethical battles rage over the fate of the embryos, which are discarded.

Long, long lives

"In principle, if you understood the mechanisms of keeping things repaired, you could keep things going indefinitely," says Cynthia Kenyon, a geneticist at the University of California at San Francisco. In 1993, she discovered a set of genes in worms that seem to control a pathway of genes that regulate aging. She was able to suppress the action of one to increase a worm's life span by six times and keep it young. Now researchers have extended the life span of mice by more than 30%, and they expect even longer-lived mice. Unlike worms, these fellow mammals share at least 70% of our genes. Kenyon co-founded Elixer Pharmaceuticals. The goal: to develop a Fountain of Youth pill, perhaps leading to sprightly centenarians. The drug's first use, still years off if it works, would be to delay diseases of aging, such as Huntington's disease and some cancers.

Artificial "servants"

No one is near creating an artificial human, or even a multi-celled creature. But in 2002 and 2003, two labs for the first time created artificial viruses by designing a genetic recipe from scratch. Now Craig Venter, one of the key scientists who sequenced the human genome in 2000, has received a $9 million grant from the Department of Energy to study the genomes of microbes all over the planet. He hopes to one day "build" a bacterium that could eat pollution from power plants, or convert the sun's energy into hydrogen fuel.

Killing bad bugs

Scientists continue to improve and expand traditional vaccines and antibiotics, even as viruses and bacteria mutate and new strains appear (such as the SARS virus two years ago in Asia and the alarming recent outbreak of the deadly Marburg virus in Angola). Research is leading to a new generation of drugs for viruses like hepatitis C, which afflicts 30,000 people a year. A drug to treat hep C may be available within five years.

For bacteria, scientists are working on methods that shut down a specific bacterium's ability to mutate -- that is, to adapt and change -- in ways that make it impervious to antibiotics. Although still years away from being available in your local pharmacy, these drugs would restore to usefulness older antibiotics that have ceased to be effective because of resistance in bacteria, and would help new antibiotics fend off resistance.

David Ewing Duncan's latest book, "The Geneticist Who Played Hoops With My DNA" (William Morrow/HarperCollins, $25.95), is new in stores.