What diseases will we be able to cure within the next 20 years?

Ask shilolo. :)

I think we will be able to cure malaria and hopefully Bird Flu

…We can already treat and prevent Malaria…?

@asmonet – Thanks. Just looked at his profile. Great to have so many knowledgeable people on Fluther.

I think we’ll have some significant breakthroughs with Alzheimer treatment, and perhaps prevention, and with spinal cord injuries. One of the things that I find really interesting is the nun brain study. So much could come out of that program.

@AlfredaPrufrock – Thanks for sharing the interesting link. Promising project. I believe that lifelong learning is key to delaying a potential outbreak of Alzheimer’s. Some time ago we had a discussion on wis.dm about this article link

I’m a bit cynical as to whether ANYTHING will be cured in the next 20 years. When’s the last time science actually CURED anything? When you think about it, as long as the majority of research into disease cures is done by pharmaceutical companies, the incentive is to find “treatments”, not “cures” because with a “cure” you administer something at one period in time, and that’s it, you make revenue one time for each person who contracts the disease, and the revenue dries up forever. You find a “treatment” however, you can sell pills for $500 a month to each person who contracts the disease for 11 years (which is how long a drug patent lasts), then generics drive the price down significantly, but you still have a constant revenue stream, just a much smaller one.

Now having gotten my cynicism out of the way, I personally think that the genome is huge, and I see a lot of hope in stemp cell research…I would think that most of the really BIG killers could be theoretically elminated in 20 years with the proper focus, that would include everything mentioned, plus diabetes, cancer, AIDS…and certainly I believe it would help with regenerative therapies for paralasys, MD, CP, etc. Personally, I think just about ANYTHING is curable if you throw enough people, money and time to it. Unfortunately, I think that with the rise of the profit motive, the motive for finding these cures has all but disappeared.

@dalepetrie – I know there are ethical issues with pharmaceutical companies sometimes. But not all of them act that way withholding cures on purpose. Not all employees of those companies are evil. Think of the vaccines for example. In a way it can be seen as a cure and a lost opportunity for selling expensive treatments.

Looking back at the last 30 years a lot of cures have been developed, especially related to advanced surgery. In know a person who had a brain tumor. He would not have survived 30 years ago. It was successfully removed. The person was cured.

@mattbrowne – well, you can’t speak in broad sweeping generalities about anything, and I’m not saying that all pharma companies are “evil” and “withholding cures”. I think it’s more of a matter of the way corporate law is structured in the US, and the way we’ve approached our economics and our consumer protection laws. Everything is designed so that corporations exist for the sole purpose of maximizing profits to the owners. I don’t think then that pharma “withholds” these cures, I just don’t think they spend NEARLY as much time as they should trying to find them…I believe R&D at pharma cos is directed almost 100% to treatment, not cure, and when cures ARE found, they are found at times in pursuit of a treatment, at times through day to day medical/surgical works (which is different really than curing a disease) wherein surgeons as function of their job, and in reaction TO supply and demand are trying to find better treatment methods for their patients (because for a doctor or surgeon, a living patient is far better than a dead one), in cases where the affliction is 100% fatal even with pharmaceutical treatment wherein there is no monetary incentive to find a treatment instead of a cure, and finally through not for profit research and development (usu. govt. funded).

Personally, I think the profit motive should be removed from medicine altogether for the common good…but clearly that ain’t gonna happen in the US of A.

I would be absolutely amazed if a few forms of cancer were not eradicated in 20–25 years given the progress that has already been made and the extraordinary amount of resources that are being thrown at them.

I’m planning on focusing on STIs, which are the most common communicable diseases, and like HPV, they cause health problems latter in life. No guarantees that I’ll have erradicated one in your 20 year timeframe, but I’ll try.

@HarmonyAlexandria, when I first read this question, my first thought was that when I was in high school 30 years ago, a diagnosis of cancer meant death, like 90% of the time, no matter what type it is. Now, that’s not true at all. What an amazing change!

cancer and aids hopefully

@mattbrowne: Not only that, he saved JudoChops life once, over the internet no less. :)

@dalepetrie – I think the patenting of human genes is a huge scandal! How can you patent nature? Shall we patent gravity too? Or we could patent the United States. It was discovered by Columbus. Maybe US citizens should pay Italy some license fees for using it ;-)

@mattbrowne – I’m with you on that one, you should only be able to patent something you invented. Like I said, I’d remove the profit motive from medicine in all forms, and in fact from ANYTHING that served the public good. I would certainly see to it that the really smart research scientists at these (now not-for-profit) companies were compensated VERY well for their efforts, and I might even consider incentivising some aspects of R&D, I want to motivate people properly to live up to their full potential. But I would basically love to see a system where we had people collaborating on solutions rather than competing, and where those whose hard work led to breakthroughs would be well rewarded. But once the breakthrough occurred and those responsible reaped their just rewards, I would not then give exclusive rights to ANYONE and allow it to be used as a cash cow…that leads to WAY too many problems that are ultimately antithetical to the whole purpose of medical research (to make peoples’ lives BETTER). So yeah, no WAY should something that has always existed be patented because someone figured out how it’s put together. I’m not even a fan of patents for the types of things we issue patents for today.

@dalepetrie – The human genome should be treated like open source – look how successful Linux and Apache and all the rest have become – there are plenty of opportunities making money by offering services

I’m really hoping for diabetes since it’s running rampant, connected with growing obesity.

I don’t believe any disease will be “cured” but I think Big Pharma will keep coming out with new promising drugs to lessen symptoms. Some of these new drugs might not even have side effects and a couple may be effective.
Remember: money is in the disease; not the cure.