Word: commonized
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...lives will change more swiftly than ever. In the following pages we ask what we hope are provocative questions about our health and the health of our planet. The sobering news is that we will have more people to care for; the good news is that technology and common sense should allow us to take better care of the place we call home. Meanwhile, the imminent mapping of the human genome--all 140,000 genes--could lead to rapid advances in treating heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's and perhaps even AIDS. One of our enduring traits--after all, we have...
Initially, advances in treatment will probably result in only modest gains. Clinicians will be able to delay onset by several years and lessen the severity of symptoms. But by 2025, control could come to resemble a cure. For Alzheimer's has something in common with other brain disorders such as Parkinson's, Huntington's and mad-cow disease. Like them, it appears to be caused by misfolded proteins--in this case, beta amyloid and tau. And so one day in the 21st century it may become possible to vanquish Alzheimer's with a vaccine that targets these miscreants...
...current pace, it will be something like that. By then scientists will have decoded the entire human genome--all 140,000 or so genes that largely say who we are and which of 4,000 diseases our flesh is heir to. They will also have found exactly where common disease-causing errors lie along the genome's long, interlocked chains...
...your personal specs--but you'll see all sorts of new capsules and tablets for virtually every ailment and condition. These will range from mood and pleasure enhancers--legal and otherwise--for the pill poppers of the future to new medications for diseases likely to be much more common in an aging population, like Alzheimer's, cardiovascular problems and cancer...
...hint at a real baldness cure. The key is a gene known as SHH. In embryos SHH controls brain development, but in mature animals--including humans--it governs natural on-off cycles of hair growth. And sure enough, when scientists inserted SHH into mouse hair follicles (using a common cold virus as their splicing tool), the dozing follicles woke up and performed...