Top 15 medical discoveries that have changed the world

We are living in  world whereby we humans do make constant and instant change to our environment, and everything that concerns out existence.

Medicine is an ever evolving field. New breakthroughs are being made all the time, but there are some discoveries that will always stand out as changing human thinking forever.

We do strive and research on a daily basis to discover better way of living. In the aspect of medicine over the centuries, dozens of scientists have sacrificed their comfort, time and strength to make and enhance the value of living.

 So great are many of these developments in fact, and so much have they impacted our daily lifestyles, that it’s sometimes almost impossible to imagine a world before many of these breakthroughs.

This is particularly true of medical discoveries, and while we might complain of long hospital waiting lists or the poor bedside manner of some of the nurses, we shouldn’t forget that only a few generations ago the same condition that is now an ‘irritation’ could have led to the loss of a limb… without anaesthetic.

 Thus medicine have transformed and improved greatly over the years.
Human bioscience have therefore compiled a list of the top 15 medical discoveries that has changed the world of medicine.

1. 3D printed body parts of humans

3D printing is widely regarded as being industry-changing technology when it approachs to consumer goods and manufacturing. But what’s not widely known is that scientists have successfully created human body parts using 3D printers.

In 2013, researchers from Cornell University managed to print an outer ear that works like and resembles the real thing. Researches from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT have reproduced blood vessels using similar processes.

Researchers from Wake Forest University in North Carolina were able to print skin cells onto wounds for rapid healing. A San Diego company called Organovo has committed itself to printing human livers, and a 3D printer partial liver transplant is expected by 2020. Over the years there have been tons of amazing 3d printed body parts.

2. Hormones for heart treatment

There’s positive news for patients at risk of heart failure. While around a quarter of patients who are hospitalised for serious heart conditions do not live beyond a year after their hospitalisation, a new drug may potentially improve this outlook dramatically.

Serelaxin, a synthetic version of the hormone relaxin, has been shown to boost survival rates in these patients by 37 per cent. The drug opens up the blood vessels and has an anti-inflammatory impact on the system.

3. Seizure stoppers

Around 50 million people around the world suffer from epilepsy. The disease causes sudden seizures and can have a debilitating effect on a sufferer’s lifestyle. A new invention, the NeuroPace, could make life easier for epileptics. Sensors implanted into the brain automatically send electrical pulses that counter the onset of seizures, so seizures are stopped in their tracks before they even begin.

4. Cheap, high quality graphene

Graphene is a transparent, single-layer lattice of carbon atoms. Valued for its super strength and ability to conduct heat and electricity, graphene can potentially be used in anything from medical treatments to solar cells.

While graphene has excellent potential for a variety of applications, a major factor preventing its wide distribution is its high cost of production . Until now.
Scientists have recently found a way to produce high-quality graphene at a fraction of the cost of previous manufacturing methods.

This new technique involves applying graphene on copper foils. Other researchers have found new ways to eliminate the need for highly controlled production environments by growing graphene film in ambient air with a natural precursor. This not only speeds up the production process but makes it much more cost effective.

5. Cataract treatment

Cataracts are a leading cause of blindness around the world. Current treatment options are limited to painful operations to replace the clouded lens with an artificial one. Fortunately, researchers have discovered a non-surgical treatment that uses eye drops. These eye drops contain compounds that dissolve the cataracts, eliminating the need for surgery.

6. Reprogrammed T-cells to treatment leukaemia

Programming T-cells to fight a particular type of leukaemia has resulted in an extraordinary success rate in experimental trials. Of the patients suffering from acute
lymphoblastic leukaemia who received the trial treatment, 94% experienced an elimination of symptoms. More than half of the patients had a complete remission of their cancer.
This new immunotherapy treatment involves taking immune cells from patients and reprogramming them with receptor molecules to target specific types of cancer. The cells are then infused back into the body. What’s more, the technique holds promising potential to treat other types of cancer and diseases.
The researchers who discovered the compounds reviewed almost 2,500 different chemicals to identify two sterols known as lanosterol and compound 29 that could be used to melt away the amyloids that lead to cataracts. People in the developing world, where access to surgery for cataracts is limited, will stand to benefit greatly from this new medical discovery.

7. The world’s first artificial pancreas

Medtronic’s MiniMed 670G measures your blood glucose every five minutes using a sensor with a protruding needle. Known as an artificial pancreas, the device also delivers insulin through a pump worn on your abdomen, adjusting the dosage according to your readings.
The MiniMed was approved by the American FDA in 2016. It’s expected to significantly reduce the risk of hypoglycaemia and make life easier for those with type 1 diabetes by saving them from having to check their blood sugar levels throughout the day.

8.  Mitochondrial replacement therapy

The world’s first baby born with a new three parent technique has avoided the risk of developing the fatal Leigh syndrome thanks to mitochondrial replacement therapy. The child’s mother is a carrier of the syndrome, and before the delivery of their health baby boy, the couple’s attempts to start a family had ended in tragedy. They endured four miscarriages before having a daughter who died at six and another child who lived for only eight months.

A team of doctors created an embryo by using the nucleus from the mother’s egg and inserting it into a donor egg that had the nucleus removed. The egg was then fertilised with the father’s sperm. In doing so, the doctors successfully created an embryo able to develop into a healthy baby boy.

9. Transplantation of organs

Few surgical interventions today carry so much complexity or as much ethical shouldn’t as organ transplantation.

“It’s such a technically complex intervention that it’s an amazing thing that it can even be done,” 

Baker said.

 “It ties together both surgery and immunology.”

The first successful transplant operation, which took place in 1954, removed a kidney from one donor and installed it in the body of his identical twin. Other organ transplants followed, including the first liver transplant in 1967 and the first heart transplant in 1968.

Today, there are more than 90,000 people awaiting a transplant in the United States alone a situation that also reveals the moral considerations that approach entwined with such techniques.

10. Randomized Controlled Trials

Another development largely unnoticed by the public at large, the advent of the randomized controlled trial what many refer to as the gold standard of medical research — gave medical researchers an important tool in determining which treatments work, and which do not.

Randomized trials are conducted by dividing patient populations into two groups, where one group receives the intervention to be studied while the other does not. Examining the differences between groups in these types of trials has ushered in an era of evidence-based medicine that continues to guide clinical practice on a daily basis.

“I think this is huge,” Baker said. “This is really what’s changed how we deal with cancer and lots of other disease, too. In the future we’ll look back at this as a huge step forward.”

11. X-ray imaging

Before the discovery of radiologic imaging technologies, beginning with the use of the X-ray, doctors were usually relegated to looking only for external signs of injury or damage.

Today, the ability to peer inside the body and determine the cause, extent, or presence of disease has revolutionized the very way medicine operates and has saved countless lives in the process.
Much of the initial work surrounding the discovery of X-rays was done by Roentgen, a German physicist in the late 1800s. Initially, they were viewed as an invasion of privacy rather than a life-saving tool.

Its utility was soon realized, however, and many additional imaging technologies eventually followed.

“CT scans didn’t come into the picture until the 1970s,” Baker said, adding that this technology was brought to us by the company BMI — the same BMI which had previously made a fortune off the British band known as the Beatles.

12. Developments in Cardiac Care

Heart disease remains at the top of the list of the country’s killers. Despite this, numerous important advances in its treatment have made a considerable impact, extending and improving the lives of its sufferers.

Not the least of these advancements is surgeons’ ability to operate on and repair the heart — without putting the patient at an unreasonable amount of risk.


“Maybe the breakthrough moment was the rise of the heart-lung bypass, which made it possible to operate on the heart for more than just a few minutes at a time,”

 Baker said.

 “This was followed by coronary artery bypass grafting, which is, I believe, a most important procedure.”

13. Advancements in Childbirth

Up until the middle of the 20th century in the United States, childbirth was considered to be the most feared part of a woman’s life.

“Go into any old graveyard, and you always see a number of women who died in their 20s,” Baker said. “That was in a large part due to childbirth.”
With the advent of techniques in anesthesia, cesarean section, and forceps delivery, the chances of a successful have pregnancy improved, at least in developed countries. Unfortunately, many resource-poor societies around the world still lag behind in this arena.
“It represented an important turning point in the field of medical ethics,” Baker said. “It really challenged physicians’ ethic of ‘first, do no harm.'”

14. Insulin – 

 Before the discovery of the hormone insulin in 1920 by Frederick Banting, diabetes was a condition that would lead to a slow and unpleasant death. Today, thanks to this finding, most diabetic patients manage to live normal and full lives which has affected the lives of millions of people around the world.

15. Anaesthetic –

 If you ever had to have an operation without any form of anaesthetic then you would likely have a whole new appreciation for just how important this discovery was. Imagine watching doctors cutting you open without anesthesia. It would be hell on earth because you will be groaning in extreme pain