It seems incredible, but almost twenty years have passed since the end of the twentieth century. In the field of science, it has rained a lot since December 1999, when the whole world feared the possible computer collapse caused by the change of the millennium, that famous 2000 effect.
In these years there have been amazing advances in the scientific and technological world: the confirmation of the Higgs boson and gravitational waves, the culmination of the Human Genome project, the detection of water on Mars, the discovery of graphene and the spectacular advance of nanotechnology, the development of CRISPR / Cas9 technology and a long list of innovations that until recently were considered science fiction.
A new decade begins and many scientific challenges await us. Advancing in the understanding of climate change and making progress in the detection and treatment of numerous diseases prevalent in society – many of them associated with aging – are some of the lines of research that should respond to the demands of today’s society. In turn, disciplines such as astronomy, which continues to explore the confines of our universe, or paleoanthropology, which increasingly gives us more clues about our evolutionary history, will continue to offer us new discoveries that improve our understanding of the world.
At Muy Interesante we have spoken with experts from different fields to find out what science has in store for us in the 2020s … welcome to the future!
Biomedicine and the fight against cancer
María Abad has a PhD in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biomedicine and directs a research group at the Vall d’Hebrón Institute of Oncology. We have asked him about his expectations for the 2020s, and he tells us that, in his opinion, much progress is going to be made in the field of immunotherapy. “In this past decade it has already been a real revolution, because thanks to it people are already being cured! We are not only talking about extending life expectancy in the face of a very aggressive tumor, but about people who are cured and in whom the disease is eradicated in a stable way, that is a revolution! “, it states. “However, there is still much to learn: immunotherapy does not work in all tumors or in all types of cancer, I believe that in the 2020s we will continue to advance in that line.”
The researcher is also clear that “much progress will be made in early detection, either through improvements in imaging techniques, which will be much more sensitive and accessible, as well as through liquid biopsy techniques , which allow detecting the presence of tumors in a sample. of blood or other fluids. ”Early detection can end with a very high percentage of deaths because, as we already know, in late cancer diagnoses the probability of survival drops drastically.
Abad also concludes with a plea in defense of basic science, key to understanding the development of many diseases and finding new ways to combat them. “It is necessary to open new paradigms and understand processes that today we do not even know exist. Among the issues that are emerging is, for example, everything related to cellular plasticity, which goes beyond mutations ”. The researcher explains that, until now, in cancer research everything was based on locating mutations and attacking them, but “ from basic science, it is increasingly evident that not everything depends on mutations: we know, for example, that mutations Tumor cells acquire cellular plasticity and transformation capacity, and therefore adaptation, and this does not strictly depend on mutations. This is something that has been treading strongly in the field of oncology and regenerative medicine, they are new paradigms that we still cannot apply in clinical medicine because we do not know them at a basic level ”.
“On the other hand, until now we did not know a large part of the proteins that make up our cells, and recently we have realized that there are very small ones, called microproteins or micropeptides , that had gone completely unnoticed, precisely because they are so small. . I am convinced that this is going to give us a lot of information, it is a revolution that will come soon because it is as if we were taking off a blindfold, it is going to open up many fields of research ”, reflects the scientist.
Is the key in microbiology?
Microbes are causative agents of many diseases, but they can also be part of the solution, as explained by Raúl Rivas, professor and researcher in the Microbial Interactions Group of the Department of Microbiology and Genetics of the University of Salamanca. Rivas believes that extraordinary advances will also be made in his field of research. In addition, we will face many challenges: “it is possible that a new epidemic will appear, mainly of viral origin, this is something that has a cyclical nature and has not happened for a long time, but it will happen: viruses recombine, new strains appear and therefore new diseases. In addition, there is the challenge of multi-resistance to antibiotics, which is a problem but, in turn, those who have the solution are also the same microorganisms “, the researcher explains. “Think that they were there, fighting each other, long before us. We get antibiotics from them and they used antibiotics long before us. I am sure that microorganisms have many other tools to defend themselves and we are going to discover them ”.
The scientist also believes that with CRISPR technology we have a fundamental tool for the development of new applications, obtaining transgenics and treating numerous diseases. “ I believe that we are going to be able to eradicate diseases, and polio will be the next… we have to achieve it! It would be the second human disease to be eradicated, since so far it has only been achieved with smallpox (human) and rinderpest (animal). That would be a great milestone, to be able to forget about an illness forever. I also believe that much progress will be made in the achievement of new vaccines, for example influenza and Ebola. Ebola has been a terrifying disease at the beginning of the 21st century, but since we are on the right track to contain it, there are already steps towards achieving an efficient vaccine ”.
Genetic engineering and CRISPR technology
In relation to CRISPR technology and its possibilities in human genetic engineering, which have effectively led to a revolution in the decade that is ending, we have spoken with Susanna Balcells, a researcher at the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the University of Barcelona and at the CIBERER. “One of the looming challenges is to control the modification to the point that it can be totally specific. CRISPR / Cas9 technology has advanced by leaps and bounds, and more and more efficient variants are emerging. But we still do not fully control this specificity, and to modify the genome of a human being we must guarantee it 100% ”, explains this expert, who also considers the training of researchers and health professionals very necessary so that they can use this technique safely. “The therapeutic application of CRISPR is expensive and technically complex, multidisciplinary teams are needed to apply it. As in many other areas of medicine, there are huge inequalities in this field. The leading groups have already set up their companies and have patented their protocols, and in fact there are quite a few patent wars between them ”.
In this sense, Balcells also considers it important to ensure that the technique is available to everyone and that the ethical and legal framework for the application of genetic modification is built. And, while the debate is still open, the researcher believes that other scientists will soon appear advancing ‘on their own’, as was the case of He Jiankui and his team, who a year ago announced the birth of the first modified human babies genetically.
“The debate on the ethical limits of genetic modification is difficult to orchestrate. All humans play in that orchestra and we should all speak in that debate. But who runs it? First of all, we need the scores, that is: to know what genetic modification consists of at a technical and medical level, and to know its possible fields of application . It is also necessary to know what problems genetic modification solves that cannot be solved by other means. I believe that, to be able to debate, a lot of training is needed at the level of all citizens. And time is short, ”reflects the researcher, who also considers that one of the challenges in human genetics for the next decade lies in identifying the genetic cause of minority diseases in order to develop more specific therapies.
Biotechnology
Raúl Rivas highlights that, in the field of biotechnology, one of the most important advances produced in recent decades has been the possibility of cultivating skin , a milestone that allows, for example, to test cosmetics without the need to use animal models. “We are moving towards the manufacture of whole organs from the patient’s own cells, it is still very complicated, but I think that will be a direction in which it will tend in the coming years.”
Biotechnology will also bring us, according to the expert, many solutions to current problems through biomimetics, which seeks its inspiration in nature. “ There are already some examples like the Japanese bullet train, whose nose is based on the kingfisher’s beak. Or solar plants designed in the shape of the sunflower flower, which mimic the arrangement of the seeds to be able to put more solar panels in less space. This is going to go much further, it is going to be a real revolution in the design and construction of buildings ”.
Biotechnology will also affect the field of information. “DNA is going to be used as a vehicle for transporting and storing data,” explains the researcher. “I believe that in a short time there will be DNA hard drives, in fact a movie film has already been encoded in a DNA sequence.”
Finally, the scientist highlights the usefulness of the study of the microbiological fingerprint in forensic crimes. ” We all have a fingerprint, but also a microbiological one, each person has certain microorganisms that are already beginning to be studied to see if a kind of data bank can be created that allows assigning the microbiological fingerprint that is left at the scene of the crime ”, he concludes.
Climate change and desertification
Climate change is another of the great scientific issues for the decade that is beginning. We have asked Fernando Maestre, Distinguished Researcher at the ‘Ramon Margalef’ Multidisciplinary Institute for the Study of the Environment at the University of Alicante, and he tells us that “one of the main challenges we have today from the point of view of ecology, and in which there will be great advances in the coming years, is to better understand how climate change will affect ‘hidden biodiversity’, and by this we refer to the biodiversity that soils harbor ”.
On the other hand, the researcher also talks about the need to improve current models that explain the dynamics of carbon, explicitly taking into account the activity of soil microorganisms. “The models have to incorporate the feedbacks between processes such as the emission of CO2 by the soil and global warming.” This will serve, not only to improve the models, but also to ” have more precise information on how different management actions – such as planting trees or agricultural management – will affect the sequestration and carbon balance on our planet, ” Maestre clarifies.
In a climate change scenario, many Mediterranean countries are at greater risk of desertification. “I believe that in the coming years very important advances will be made in our understanding of under what climatic conditions and human pressure an arid ecosystem is going to desertify ,” predicts Maestre. “For example, if we know what levels of aridity and grazing are going to trigger the desertification of an ecosystem, we can establish early warning indicators that tell us that this process is occurring and, therefore, we can act to reverse its effects before it occurs. be late “.
With regard to climate change, Raúl Rivas also believes that microbiology and biotechnology can be part of the solution: “there are many microorganisms, especially those related to the marine biome, that can fix CO2 and become very powerful allies . Steps are also being taken to obtain cellulose from microorganisms and to avoid the felling of trees ”.
In addition, experts already announce that diets based on the consumption of animal protein are not sustainable. In this regard, the microbiologist predicts that “new foods will be available soon, I don’t know if it will be in this decade, but we already have laboratory meat. At the moment it is expensive, but the steps are going to go there because it is unsustainable to produce meat for everyone and especially in a scenario of overpopulation. There will be new foods and many may be based on microorganisms: microplankton, microalgae and a long etcetera ”.
Astronomy
We cannot talk about science of the future without thinking about space exploration. At this time, the space agencies of the great superpowers already have several dozen missions of all kinds planned for the 2020s.
In October 2021, NASA plans to launch the Lucy mission, which will be responsible, for the next twelve years, to study the so-called Trojan asteroids, located beyond the asteroid belt. These bodies orbit the Sun at the distance of Jupiter, and it is expected that they can give us more clues about the formation and evolution of our solar system.
For its part, the European Space Agency will continue with its ExoMars program, consisting of two missions. The second of them, ExoMars 2020, will take off in the summer of 2020 and its landing on the red planet is expected in March 2021. The North American agency also plans to send another of its rovers to Mars at that time, specifically to the Jezero crater, in a mission that will last one Martian year (687 Earth days).
Another focus of attention is on the search for potentially habitable exoplanets, and ESA has approved the PLATO mission in this regard, scheduled to launch in 2023. In addition, between 2023 and 2025 the Europa Clipper mission of the NASA, to determine if Europa has the necessary ingredients to support life as we know it.
Space travels
Will 2020 be the decade of space tourism travel? The key may be in Elon Musk, who a few months ago presented his Starship Mk1 spacecraft, a prototype that, according to him, in 2020 will be ready to start sending passengers into space. In addition, Musk plans to send spacecraft to Mars by the beginning of this decade and, shortly after, the first astronauts.
NASA’s plan is somewhat more prudent: the US agency plans to bring the first humans to Mars in the 2030s, and its intention in the coming years is to minimize the risks derived from such a mission. One of the possibilities is to carry out some type of training on the International Space Station, which simulates the conditions and vicissitudes of a trip to Mars, but being, as they say, ‘at home’.
The Russian space agency, Roscosmos, is not far behind: its new rocket is called Argo, it will be ready by 2024 , and it will begin making supply trips to the International Space Station.
And, furthermore, the 2020s will be the one in which man returns to the Moon: NASA has an ambitious project, called Artemis, which foresees up to eleven launches between 2020 and 2024. One of the milestones will be to send the first woman to the Moon and, in addition, from 2025 the first commercial flights are planned , as well as more or less long stays of humans on our satellite, as part of the preparation for future human exploration on Mars.
Human evolution
So far this century, the study of the origins of our species has advanced by giant steps and we have discovered new species of hominids that, although they greatly complicate the task of unraveling our evolutionary tree, they make this endeavor even more exciting.
We now know that, for most of its evolutionary history, Homo sapiens has not been alone. It shared habitat and even hybridized with at least two other species: Neanderthals and Denisovans. In addition, other species of the genus Homo have been described that have broken old patterns and that could evolve in ways other than ours: H. floresiensis , H. naledi and, more recently, H. luzonensis . On the other hand, also at the beginning of this century the description of Ardipithecus ramidus , the most probable candidate to be the oldest hominid that we know, was published in Science.
It is very likely that in the coming years there will be, on the one hand, new discoveries of hominid species hitherto unknown, and also that knowledge will be deepened and more details will be found about the life forms of our ancestors. Genetic and molecular dating techniques have evolved a lot , and the analysis of ancient remains with the most modern technology will allow much more precision in the deductions.
“I believe that in the coming years, the cutting-edge techniques commonly used in the fields of biochemistry and biomedicine and applied to materials recovered from archaeological sites, such as ancient DNA sequencing or protein analysis in organic remains, will give us many surprises. Very possibly the results will force us to rethink the evolutionary tree of the genus Homo and also our own adaptive capacities ”, reflects Ana Belén Marín Arroyo, researcher at the International Institute for Prehistoric Research of Cantabria (University of Cantabria).
“In fact, recent discoveries made thanks to these new methodologies have made it possible to identify a new human species, the Denisovans , from just a tiny fragment of bone, and even also a hybrid species of Neanderthal mother and Denisovan father. The scarcity of the fossil record will be helped with these techniques, which are also less and less destructive ”, concludes the researcher.
